Kyle Walker has revealed that he wishes he could ‘bring up his children on a council estate’ to reflect his own working class upbringing.
The Manchester City star, 34, who earns a reported £160,000 a week, offered rare insight into his childhood on his BBC Sounds podcast You’ll Never Beat Kyle Walker, and insisted that despite his vast wealth, his boys are not spoilt.
Kyle shares four sons with his wife Annie Kilner, Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, Reign, five, and four-month-old Rezon. He also has two children with Lauryn Goodman, son Kairo, four, and daughter Kinara, 12 months.
Despite a net worth of £27 million, Kyle said that his boys have ‘have to entertain themselves’.
‘I say now have the privileges of having nice things but the kids have to entertain themselves. They play with their brothers and that’s it,’ he said.
Kyle Walker has revealed that he wishes he could ‘bring up his children on a council estate’ to reflect his own working class upbringing
Kyle shares four sons with his wife Annie Kilner , Roman, 11, Riaan, seven, Reign, five, and four-month-old Rezon. He also has two children with Lauryn Goodman
He added: ‘I wish sometimes I could put them on an estate to mingle with different people and have different friends when I was growing up you’d go and call for your mates.’
Kyle grew up on the Lansdowne Estate in Sheffield, and previously shared how his upbringing has reflected his own parenting.
The sportsman admitted that while he used to ‘hate’ his dad’s parenting style, he now won’t let his own children win when they play football on the garden.
He explained: ‘My dad, I used to hate going to football with him. No matter if I played good or I played bad, I’d get in the car and be reduced to tears.’
His dad Michael, was originally from Jamaica and moved to England in his late teens, meeting his mum Tracey shortly after.
Kyle continued: ‘I don’t blame him for that because it’s made me the person and the player that I am. I always want to prove people wrong and during the start of my career it was dad I was trying to prove wrong. He did it because he cared.
‘With my kids now I don’t let them win. If I keep letting them win, when they lose it will be traumatic for them. We play football games in the garden and I give it my all because it will instil that into them, they will be better people and become winners.
‘My dad’s parents were from Jamaica and left him in England with £200 and a washer when he was 17. So, he passed it down from his parents to me.
Kyle grew up on the Lansdowne Estate in Sheffield, and previously shared how his upbringing has reflected his own parenting
‘I try to not do the same as much as possible. But where he taught me to be a winner I try to pass that on to the boys.’
Opening up about living in the flats, Kyle recalled seeing fires and dead bodies but still ‘wishes sometimes’ he could put his kids on an estate.
He recounted: ‘A guy had petrol through the door and someone chucked a match in. It was three floors up, the caretakers held a blanket underneath and were catching children as their mum threw them down. She died in there.’
Kyle is currently battling to save his relationship with Annie, 32, after fathering not one but two children with Lauryn during their marriage.
Annie booted him out of their £4million family mansion in Cheshire once the truth was exposed – leaving Kyle to take out a six month lease on accommodation.
A source told MailOnline that Kyle is living between the apartment and his family home as he and Annie continue to work on their relationship.
The source said: ‘Kyle is between homes at the moment as he only leased an apartment for six months when he and Annie separated in January.
‘As the relationship is still being worked on he has taken the decision to split his time between both places, so as to be close to work and training whilst maintaining a relationship with his family.
‘Annie, Kyle and the boys spent a fun summer together which helped them work through their troubles and kept things as normal as possible for their four boys. Kyle treated Annie to a gorgeous beach BBQ on her birthday and those special moments mean everything to them all.
‘They continue to work on what their future looks like as a couple with their children at the forefront of their mind.’
In July, Lauryn lost her child maintenance battle with the footballer after a series of tumultuous months.
In an interview with The Sun on Sunday, the influencer described Kyle as a man who wanted to ‘have his cake and eat it’ and rather than being the ‘gold digger’ she has been portrayed as, she is simply trying to do right by their children.
She said: ‘I do grow tired of all the criticism sometimes, but I don’t regret fighting to financially protect my children from an errant father.’
Last month, an extraordinary court judgement saw Lauryn accused of using Kyle as an ‘open ended cheque book and of having ‘repeatedly threatened him in order to get what she wanted’.
She said that while her recent court hearing had painted her as someone with an ‘insatiable greed and relentless pursuit of money’, she maintained that she is financially solvent through her job as an influencer and regular appearances on TV shows.
