Famous and celebrated French footballer Hugo Lloris left the Tottenham Hotspurs after eleven years and is now a member of the Los Angeles Football Club. It’s believed he passed on higher-paying offers from other teams to instead live in LA and play for the much-less-prestigious American professional league. And according to the former World Cup goalkeeper, you can thank Hollywood, Dr. Dre, and Rockstar’s open-world crime series—Grand Theft Auto—for convincing him to head out to California.
As first reported in December 2023, and officially confirmed in February 2024, Lloris has left his longtime club—the London-based Hotspuers—and joined LA’s successful Major League Soccer (MLS) team, the Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC).
Talking about the move in a new interview with GetFootballNewsFrance, Lloris explained that he might have retired—-he’s 37 years old—but when LA offered him a good deal to head to the US, he felt the “flame and the enthusiasm” for the game return quickly. It also didn’t hurt that, according to him, LA is just a nice, chill place to live.
“Here, I don’t need to wear a scarf and a hat like I would have to at Disneyland Paris,” said Lloris. “Everything is more peaceful. I have maybe had ten people asking me for selfies throughout the day, especially Latinos. Those are the main football fans here”.
But there might have been another reason for his move: Grand Theft Auto. According to the soccer star, he’s played a lot of the game (which I assume is GTA V, though he doesn’t specify) and listed it alongside other reasons to live in LA.
“In terms of population, it seems to get bigger with every move, but I think we’ll stop here,” said Lloris. “The film industry, Dr. Dre, GTA…I played this game so much on the Playstation that I had the impression that I knew all the landmarks of the city without having been here.”
I’m not sure Rockstar Games designed GTA V or any of the other entries in the long-running series as tourism ads or things meant to convince anyone to live in those worlds. But then again, driving around GTA’s digital spin on LA can be enjoyable, as long as you dodge the overly aggressive police and lunatics. So in that sense, Lloris has been trained to deal with the real place, too. Thanks (?) Rockstar. Can’t wait to see what big athlete moves to Miami following the launch of GTA 6 in 2025.
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