Meet ex-Man United footballer who became a PRIEST after growing ‘bored of money and attention from models’ – before declaring bankruptcy after leaving behind £500,000-a-year lifestyle

Former Northern Ireland midfielder Philip Mulryne, who is now a clergyman, was previously a member of Manchester United’s roster.

During his career, which included stints with Norwich and Cardiff City, the Northern Irishman gained 27 caps for his nation. In 2017, he was ordained as a Catholic deacon.

After graduating from the club’s academy, Mulryne started his career at Old Trafford. He played in just one Premier League game before joining Norwich in 1999 for £500,000.
The Northern Irishman made more than 150 league games for the Norfolk team after winning over the fans at Carrow Road before departing for Cardiff City in 2005.

After that, his career would take a turn for the worse, with him hardly playing for the Welsh team before stints at Leyton Orient and King’s Lynn Town before his 2008 retirement.

 

Many former athletes choose to become coaches or television commentators, but Mulryne chose to give up his glamorous lifestyle in favor of a more spiritual way of living.

He started to lose interest in football at the age of 31, at which point he started preparing for the Catholic priesthood. Mulryne, who in his prime made over £500,000 a season, decided to make a big change because he didn’t like the direction his career was taking.

‘It’s impossible to pin down a precise time,’ Mulryne previously said on Norwich’s official website about his move into priesthood. Although I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, I would say that it began in my final year at Norwich when I began to feel disillusioned with the entire way of life.As a football player, we have a great life, and I was quite fortunate, but I finally discovered that there was a sense of emptiness with everything around us. I was really taken aback. Why am I unhappy when I have everything young men desire?

It began a process for me to reexamine my faith, the faith I had as a young man. I decided to spend a year back home, and that’s when everything truly took a different turn.

I spent some time volunteering in a homeless shelter. I returned to daily prayer and began attending church once more. It simply gave me a genuine sense of fulfillment. There were many highs and lows in football, but this was something that consistently made me feel happy.

Mulryne, 46, manages a congregation at St. Mary’s Priory Church in Cork and is known as Reverend Father Philip Mulryne. He was consecrated as a Dominican Order priest in 2017.

Mulryne said he has no regrets about leaving the game more than ten years ago.

“I felt this strong desire for this way of life and stayed with it for a few months before getting the courage to explore it and I made the decision and it’s now eight years later,” he continued. “My vocation to priesthood and religious life came later in the course of that year.”

Throughout his career, Mulryne has had his share of fan adulation, but things haven’t always gone as planned.

In 2005, he was expelled from a Northern Ireland team in shame for going out to drink with teammate Jeff Whitely in violation of a curfew.

Peter Crouch, Mulryne’s teammate at Norwich, believes he may have had some influence on the former football player’s decision to become a priest.

‘Maybe — and this is a thought I don’t like to contemplate — it was hanging around with me in those heady months that convinced him he needed a fresh direction in his life,’ the former Liverpool striker said in his book How to Be an Ex-Footballer.

Nicola Chapman, a gorgeous model who starred on Real Footballer’s Wives in 2005, was formerly Mulryne’s girlfriend. With more than two million subscribers to her YouTube channel, she is now a social media vlogger specializing in beauty and fashion.

In 2017, she talked candidly with MailOnline about her battles with multiple sclerosis and her connection with her family.

In 2009, Mulryne enrolled for the first time at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome. Prior to pursuing a four-year theology degree in Belfast, he had previously studied philosophy for two years in Italy.

Any investments made in the British film business can be written off against taxes under the plan.

However, they are now the focus of an HMRC crackdown on what it considers to be tax evasion.

Mulryne spent the previous 13 years as a member of Zeus Films LLP and Tudor Films LLP before being declared bankrupt.

Zeus reported losses of over £800,000, while Tudor Films reported losses of over £900,000.