E63: Martin Offiah

Martin Offiah MBE is a rare thing, a rugby league player who is also a household name. As a player in the 1980s and 90s, he had an extraordinary impact on the game, scoring over 500 tries during his rugby league career, making him the highest try-scoring English player of all time, and now features in a statue of great rugby league players outside Wembley Stadium. Born in Hackney, London, Offiah was talent spotted at the Middlesex Sevens and started a career in rugby league, the only professional route available at that time. He was transferred from Widnes to Wigan in 1992 for £440,000, which was the biggest fee for a league player for fifteen years. We talk about his early days as a player, dealing with racism and how he has navigated that sometimes strange post-sports career world of reality television, Offiah starred in the first ever Strictly Come Dancing and now mixes sports punditry with his passion for the environment, working with Connected Kerb, the electric vehicle infrastructure company.The Unofficial Partner podcast is now published daily, and we're proud and grateful that our conversations are being listened to by thousands of people across the sports business every week of the year. If you'd like to enquiry about advertising, sponsorship or branded podcasts, please get in touch with Sean via email [email protected] or you can reach us via the website unofficialpartner.com.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.