‘I dated Helen Flanagan and flopped at Man City – now I make nmillions with facet hustle’
Reece Wabara was once tipped for the top as a Manchester City academy star and even briefly dated Coronation Street actress Helen Flanagan, but he went on to find his greatest success outside football with his fashion brand Maniere de Voir
Reece Wabara in a training session for England U20s(Image: RAUL ARBOLEDA / AFP via Getty Images)
Former Manchester City youth player Reece Wabara was hailed as the next big star when he emerged from the ranks at the Etihad Stadium. His solitary appearance for the club came on the last day of the 2010/11 season.
Subsequent loan stints with Ipswich Town, Oldham Athletic, Blackpool and Doncaster Rovers ensued, before City let him go in 2014. The defender then joined Doncaster on a permanent basis and had brief spells with Barnsley, Wigan and Bolton before hanging up his boots in 2017.
The now 32-year-old redirected his energy into establishing his own business, which has resulted in him amassing millions of pounds outside of football, reports the Manchester Evening News. Speaking to CEOCAST in December 2022, Wabara reflected on his football career: “It’s my fault, I was complacent, I didn’t go hard enough.”
“It was too easy up until 18, then everyone started to catch me up. I was the best player. You’re a kid, you don’t have that understanding. When it’s easy and you don’t know it’s easy until retrospect, you don’t go hard.
“Everybody told me how good I was going to be, that I’d play for England, that I’d be Manchester City’s next right-back. And I wasn’t good enough and everybody caught me up. I went on a few loans, didn’t perform, you know your time is up. I’m very paranoid now that it only takes a year and you’re done, one big mistake and you’re out of the game.”
Alongside his football career, the right-back launched and was developing his fashion enterprise Maniere de Voir. He revealed the precise moment he decided to concentrate on that rather than football.
“I was playing for Wigan, we got promoted and I was in the team of the year,” he said. “A member of the management said I’d been fantastic but they felt I was focusing on the business too much.
“I knew I was playing a game of politics, in that moment, when I started to get the switch… I thought to myself, I can’t have my future in someone else’s hands. I had the business, that was me taking that stand, in the moment I was like, ‘you know what, I’m done.’
“People saw me as flashy, not dedicated, focusing on the business. I started the clothing business, people said I just wanted to have a brand. They didn’t see that all of those things were just me as a human being. I bumped into old managers and coaches, they say they saw it in me and I was misunderstood.
“It was too late when I started to prove myself, I had the reputation. You just have to be exceptional from the beginning, it’s very hard to drop down and get back up. It’s the same in football. You don’t see people spoken about as the next best thing, drop down, and then become that best thing.”
Wabara hung up his boots in his mid-20s, after a stint with Bolton. Speaking to the high-performance podcast in 2020, he outlined his reasoning behind calling time on his career.
“I decided to completely stop because the business was doing really well and focus is important,” he said. “I was 25 or 26, I had to make a choice, what’s more long term? Where can I be the best of the best?
“And unfortunately, at the time, I could have played in the Premier League but to be a Champions League, World Cup-winning footballer was low percentage. I had to make the logical choice and that was to continue the business and take it as high as possible.”
That call appears to have been shrewd. The Sun reports that Maniere de Voir generates roughly £35 million annually. It launched its maiden store on Oxford Street in London in 2023.
Discussing the choice further, he revealed to the CEOCAST: “I already threw away a high level, prosperous career. I had a lot of talent and was touted to be x, y and z. I failed, I know how that felt and it’s not going to happen again. I’m happy that those situations happened to me so now I know that if I can achieve ‘x, y and z’, don’t let myself be the root of that failure.” He added on the High Performance Podcast: “I’m glad I missed the opportunity of Man City, England, being very highly rated. I was too complacent, that’s the bottom line. I always worked hard but I could have done more. It’s not regret because I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have that. But if I could live life again, I’d be playing in the Champions League or Premier League now.”
When asked if he would be competing at the highest level if he’d taken a different path, he replied: “100 per cent, without a shadow of a doubt.
“But I didn’t so it’s one of those things. At the same time, if I didn’t have that failure or slight regret, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have now.”
It has since emerged that during his formative years at City, he romanced two former Coronation Street actresses. Penning her memoir Head and Heart: Break-ups, Breakdowns and Being Rosie, Helen Flanagan disclosed her fleeting romance with Wabara.
“I went out a few times with a Manchester City youth player called Reece Wabara who – and this is too funny – Brooke [Vincent] (her Coronation Street co-star) later ended up going out with.
“We were never serious and I didn’t sleep with him but there was one night he took me back to his lodgings after we’d been out in Manchester and his furious landlady kicked me out. ‘Er, you’re not going upstairs young lady,’ she said. Dead!” She further commented: “Reece was gorgeous but it fizzled out as quickly as it had started and I think he was a bit of a ladies’ man anyway.
“He’s actually gone on to have a really successful career away from football with his clothing brand Maniere De Voir which has a flagship store on London’s Oxford Street, so he’s come a long way since his landlady was giving him a telling-off for bringing back girls to the house.”
