2026-05-09 13:30:37

Oli McBurnie thinks he is a “better person” after playing for Las Palmas.

The 29-year-old Hull City striker – who had stints at Bradford, Swansea and Sheffield United before making the move to Gran Canaria in 2024 – credits relocating to the Spanish island with his fiancee Niamh and their young daughter Mimi for helping him turn his life around and becoming less “selfish”.

He told Telegraph Sport: “Before that I was probably very selfish. Everything was about what was best for me. Having people that depend on you will change you and really make you consider things before you do them.

“Going out there [to Spain] with my fiancée and my two-month-old at the time made me grow up quickly. I developed so much as a person, matured so much as a person and became a better person.”

Oli was fined for drink driving in 2020 and a year later, video footage emerged of him involved in a street fight, while 2022 saw him cleared of stamping on a pitch-invading Nottingham Forest fan after the side beat his team Sheffield United in the Championship play-offs.

Oli believes he was “naive” at the time, but feels he is a better person now after owning his mistakes.

He said: “I think back about how I was and it’s just so different to how I am now. My heart was always in the right place, but the way I went about things was probably not the right way. I’ve always held my hands up whenever I’ve made mistakes and I live by them. I feel like I’m a better person now because of it…

“Naive is probably the best word. I think a lot of things happened, you have to remember I was a working-class kid from Leeds playing professional football in the Premier League. It’s an unbelievable thing to be doing, but you’re thrown into the deep end in terms of situations and then all of a sudden you’re supposed to be a role model.”

The Scotland international is unsure if he’s been able to change people’s opinions of him.

He said: “I don’t know if the opinion on me has changed from the outside. I’d probably say no, I’d probably say that brush will always be tarnished with you. I don’t think those things change. On the outside people still probably think I’m like how I used to be. But even when people used to think what they thought of me, I like to think I was always a decent person.”

Visit Bang Premier (main website)