Former Arsenal striker calls out coach who asked him to be 'bubbly' while mourning daughter's death

Former Arsenal, Bournemouth, and Stoke City striker Benik Afobe has spoken up about his struggles with the death of his daughter in 2019, which wrecked him emotionally and called out one of his former managers for being insensitive to his struggles. 

Afobe lost his daughter, Amora, who sadly passed away after suffering complications from a severe infection in November 2019. 

The Arsenal academy graduate reminisced on the CounterAttack podcast about losing his daughter and how it had become a lot more difficult to continue as a professional footballer since her demise noting that he has “been to hell and back” trying to recover from the loss. 

He said, “That's the hardest part of the whole situation. Imagine. It's not even the grieving. If I'm really honest, football has been much tougher since she passed away, 100 percent. I think about it all the time.” 

“I've got other kids, and they're a blessing, but when I first came back it was tough. I was playing poorly. Stoke fans used to get onto me, they didn't realise I was going through things. I've been to hell and back.” 

Afobe recalled the period just after the death of his daughter on the CounterAttack podcast, noting that his manager at the time expected him to ‘just move’ on and keep being his old happy self while he was suffering internally with grief. 

The Arsenal academy graduate said, “I had a coach when she [His daughter] passed away, who wanted me to be a leader in the club, and I was being quiet. It was about three or four months after she passed. 

“He pulled me in his office and said, ‘Listen, I need the bubbly Benik Afobe to get the boys going. You’re an experienced player, you played at a high level.’” 

“And I just went ‘okay’ because I wanted to hold my peace, but I thought to myself, ‘Wow, they just expect me to go back to being everything [I was].’” 

The six-time Congo international further emphasised the lack of empathy shown by his manager at that time, noting that it soon became clear that nobody truly appreciated the difficulty he was going through. 

“It’s different if he said I need you to run around or I need you to play well. But he was asking me to put all my effort in making the other boys happy and positive when it was a struggle for me to do it for myself and my family. 

“I just said to myself, you know what? They don’t understand what I’m going through.”

Judging from the timing of Afobe’s story, the coach in question was likely current Hibernian gaffer Lee Johnson, who was in charge of Afobe at Bristol City when he was on loan from Stoke City.