Personally reckon 5% (at most) of any top premier league player, past or present, supports the club, or even comes close, to what we would define a supporter. This aint based on attendances, but just gut 'feel' for the club, through winning and losing. All the posters on here know that feeling, irrespective of where they reside. I suspect 95% of these players don't, not just because of money, but many, who are young enough, will have been taken into youth academies etc, and not had the liberty of lording it up at Millwall in 2001, or meeting Leeds in 81 near the British Queen, or simply going out with their mates to a game.
On the contrary, I think the vast majority of players have a team they would say they are a "fan" of! Depends how you define "fan" mate. People will call themselves a fan from anywhere in this possible spectrum:
- they go to every game home and away, have the walls in their home plastered with memorabilia, club badge tattooed on their chest, spend all their spare time posting on xxxxxx FC forums
- they go to a large number of matches and frequently get into debates with fans of other teams, often with a far too blinkered view
- they go to a few matches a season and watch what they can of the remainder on TV. Release of the new club shirt is one of the highlights of the year
- they go to maybe one game a season, but always knows when their team is playing and looks out for their result first.
- don't go to matches anymore (possibly never have been) but have a strong affinity to a team based on childhood experiences. Used to go to games/wear club shirts/have player posters on their wall/get into heated debates with a blinkered point of view
- they call themselves a fan but have no active involvement whatsoever. Often just because they live in that city, or there is a family link eg husband/dad is a xxxx fan
Personally, I feel all of the above are "fans", bar the last group. Professional footballers, unless they actually play for the team they support, will solely fall into the penultimate one. They cannot go to watch most of their real team games as they play for another side. It's not really that wise for them to actively promote their real team too.... Could you imagine what it would be like if Aaron Lennon said "Leeds are number one for me" or Benoit said "I'm PSG till I die"? All we want to know is that they are 100% committed to the Tottenham cause, at least because we are paying them for that.
But I bet when Spurs get off the field on a Saturday afternoon, you do get situations where Walker is asking anyone he can now Sheffield United got on, or Bale is straight on his phone to check Cardiffs result. I don't know if Lennon is a Leeds fan etc by the way, just saying that these are the sorts of scenarios that exist because these are still 20, 25 year old guys who like all guys are still kids at heart. Ironically, the more removed they become from the reality we know as the real world, they will lose the sense of escapism and dreaming we get as footie fans, but I am sure that the vast majority of players still have in interest in one team ahead of any other in some way, because its THEIR team.
Think back to when you were at school.... Almost all of the lads who were interested in football were passionate about a team. Only one team, normally. And the better you were, the more nuts you were about football. Not always - I was crap at football at school (not much better now!) but I was spurs nuts and everyone knew it.
It really depends how you define a fan but I believe for most people it's rooted in childhood experience, it gets in your blood and once it's there, you can't take it out. You can lose friends, family, home, work, but it's a constant and even if Spurs got relegated out of the league, while they exist - and they probably always will - then that's who I support, and I can't change that, even if I wanted to try.