DANIEL AGGER’S retirement is much like his playing career – mixing dirty work and artistry.
Following his premature retirement in 2016, at the age of 31, the former Liverpool hard-man decided to put money into his passion and necessity: tattoos and poop.
The Danish defender trained to be a tattoo artist and is now part of one of the biggest parlours across the world, called Tattoodo.
But for Agger that was not it, as he had more money to invest in s***.
Now 35, Agger launched a company in 2013 called KloAgger, putting £450,000 into a company that manages sewage systems in Denmark.
So how did they come up with the name? KloAgger translates to ‘Agger toilet’.
Agger is regularly involved with the firm but his younger brother Marco and their friend Rune Rasmussen oversee it day-to-day.
Inked-up Agger is more interested in the tats.
He started and finished his career at Danish club Brondby, and it was as a 15-year-old youth player that he got his first work done.
“I was about 15 and on a school trip to Paris,” Agger said in an interview on Tattoodo’s website.
“It wasn’t something I’d thought about before. Me and a friend went into the shop and said that’s what we’re going to have and we got it. I still have it today.”
But it’s been added to dramatically, with almost every inch of his body containing a tattoo.
There’s the viking graveyard across his back, the love hearts on his calves, Latin proverbs all over his body and the names of his family members etched in.
“I see it as one piece,” Agger, a qualified tattooist, said. “When I speak to people I talk about my tattoo as one piece but obviously every tattoo has a story, some better than others.”
One of the more recent is the ‘YNWA’ stamped onto his knuckles – the well-known Liverpool acronym for Anfield’s anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone.
“Timing was quite good,” Agger said. “[There were] a lot of rumours sending me to another club for a lot of money but I knew I was staying.
“Somehow I wanted to show that to the footballing world and this was a way I wanted to show it.”
Agger did eventually leave Liverpool in 2014 and spent two years at Brondby before ending his career earlier than expected.
Back problems throughout his career saw Agger relying on painkillers to see him through, but he believes they were his downfall.
“I have taken too many anti-inflammatories in my career,” he told Jyllands-Posten.
“I know that full well, and it sucks, but I did stop it [in the end]. I am not gaining anything personally from saying this but I can only hope that other athletes do.
“It could be that others take a pill or two less.”
