"My parents abandoned me when I was two and now they are asking me for money for life"

BarcelonaThe career of Lucas Pérez (A Coruña, 1988) is anything but routine. The footballer, who is now 36 years old, has played in Ukraine, Greece, England, Spain and, now, the Netherlands. But his team has always been Deportivo de A Coruña, the team from his city. There he made a name for himself in world football when the team played in the First Division and his appreciation for the club is such that he returned in 2023, when he was going through hardships in the 1st RFEF. That is why few understood why now that he is in the Second Division, Lucas Pérez decided to leave this winter market.

Even more unexpected was the announcement this week of his signing for PSV Eindhoven, who have qualified for the Champions League last 16 after eliminating Juventus, until the end of the season. He went from playing in the second division at the club of his life to playing in the Champions League in a city unknown to him. But everything has become understandable now that Lucas Pérez has made his personal story public.

"My parents abandoned me when I was two years old and now they are asking me for money for life," he revealed on Monday night in an interview on Cope's great gameThis point is relevant when explaining his departure from Deportivo, because at a time when there were people at the club who were asking him to leave due to his poor performance on the pitch, he received a burofax from his father. "There was a complaint," he explained.

"I was raised by my grandparents after going through an orphanage, where my parents abandoned me when I was two years old. My father demands maintenance for the rest of his life. I have had to go to social services to ask for information, I have read things about my life, and a child needs to have a mother, and a child needs to have a mother. My mother, when I signed for Arsenal, also sent me a burofax asking for money."

The decision to leave

The combination of the bad situation at Deportivo and the bad news from his family led Lucas Pérez to make the decision to leave the Galician club. "The issue with my father continues, the trial is coming up and I meet him several times. As the situation at the club was not right and I did not feel valued as captain, I decided to go somewhere else."

Lucas Pérez wanted to get away from all this and Eindhoven did not seem like a bad destination to him even though this means living away from his son, who lives in Madrid. "It is obvious that I wanted to be close to my son, but I had already kept him far away because of my work. PSV sent me the offer on January 30, but I was not able to sign. They waited a month," he thanked.