“I would always take him running on the sands early morning in Jamaica,” Craig Butler, Leon Bailey’s adopted father, recalls.
“There was one section of the beach that said ‘do not swim’ because it had a very high undercurrent, but I didn’t see the sign and went to retrieve a football. When I swam out, the current started to pull me back — all I could do was hold on to the ball. Everyone else stood on the shore and didn’t realise what was happening.
“One little boy swam out by himself, grabbed me and tried to help. When I realised there were now two of us in trouble, I found extra strength to swim in. That boy was Leon. We both lay on the shore for four hours, exhausted. Those were the bonds that brought us even closer.”
The Aston Villa winger was one of 23 children adopted by Butler and lived with him from the age of eight. Bailey was born in Cassava Piece, north of Jamaica’s capital city of Kingston and an underprivileged ghetto known for gang crime and violence.
“It is a tough and bad ghetto — nothing nice in terms of safety there,” says Butler. “His mum, God bless her soul, is called Jean and did a really good job, trying to make the best for him. I knew her and one day she said: ‘Listen, coach, can you take care of Leon for me?’.
“From then, he came to live with me and my son, Kyle, and they did everything together. Leon became my son and I truly love him.”
This is the remarkable story of Bailey, raised in the toughest neighbourhoods, who trekked Europe and is now starring in the Premier League.
Bailey struggled to settle at Villa initially. Confidence from managers waned and injuries and inconsistent form meant reservations harboured, with critics questioning the £25million ($31.87m) Villa paid for him in the summer of 2021.
Yet, under Unai Emery, the supreme potential observers believed Bailey had — Butler insists he will be the “best player in the world” one day — is gradually being realised. This season, the 26-year-old is one of the four Premier League players to have registered at least five goals and five assists.
“His potential is amazing,” says Emery. “Progressively, he’s getting better and he’s humble to listen and improve. His qualities and skill… sometimes when we play at home, we watch him and think, ‘Wow, what a player’.”
Bailey has been in inspired form (Neville Williams/Aston Villa FC via Getty Images)
Bailey’s early issues in the West Midlands, though, pale into insignificance compared to what he and Butler experienced in their lives before meeting each other.
“My first wife had kidnapped my three-year-old son, CJ, and took him away after a bitter divorce,” says Butler. “I didn’t know what to do, but one of my aunts told me to put it in ‘God’s bank’. I asked her what she meant. She said: ‘Every time you see a little boy that needs help, help him and wherever CJ is in the world, you will be able to withdraw the kindness from God’s bank and you will be protected’. So it started with Leon coming.”
Butler worked as head of the electronic company Toshiba in the Caribbean having graduated from Boston University, but he held ties in Jamaican football, running a campaign to ensure the national team received financial backing to travel to the 1998 World Cup. In his spare time, Butler worked in academy football, coaching players such as Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi and former Villa player Wesley.
Butler, increasingly affluent and of notable standing with the country’s football association, still had eyes and ears on the ground in his local community. His Christian faith was strong and preached the fundamental belief of looking after those less fortunate. Butler noted a significant percentage of Jamaican kids were lacking father figures, contributing to crime in communities like Cassava Piece.
“Cassava Piece isn’t a nice place. It’s beyond poor,” says Louis Myles, a film director and producer. “I was making a documentary called ‘Kaiser, the greatest footballer never to play football’ (about Brazilian Carlos “Kaiser” Henrique Raposo). We were in the final stages but got approached by someone who knew Craig. I instantly knew this was an incredible story.
“You hear a lot about hard knocks and how tough it was for a lot of sportspeople, but what Leon and Craig’s other adopted children had to go through… Leon probably shouldn’t be a Premier League player given his background.”
Bailey is now involved in helping the next generation of Phoenix players (Craig Butler)
Bailey could not read or write until he was 14 and, like many children from the surrounding neighbourhood, was at an immediate disadvantage. School was difficult and his mother struggled to provide the safe environment a child needs.
“Truth be told, up to eight years old, Leon had a difficult upbringing,” says Butler. “But he was given good values. The thing with Chippy is that he’s been taught never to give up. The name of our academy is Phoenix because it cannot die — it bursts back into flames and a new bird comes out. The harder you make it for him, the more he’s going to fight.”
Bailey was given the nickname ‘Chippy’ after moving in with the other children Butler fostered. It was meant affectionately and was due to Bailey’s apparent resemblance to Alvin from the Alvin and the Chipmunks film. He, alongside Kyle, began playing for Phoenix All Stars, formed in 2011.
Butler, now CEO and president of the academy, set up the initiative to develop Jamaican talent from a sporting perspective and, most crucially, use football as a vehicle to offer direction to young adults and teach the importance, in his words, of “brotherhood, loyalty and moral and social responsibility”.
“Everyone else would train hard at Phoenix, but Leon, when he was little, would sneak out and go to the bus stops, trying to check out the girls,” says Butler. “I looked at him once and said: ‘Listen, there’s no way you’re going become a professional footballer if you don’t take this seriously’.”
Kyle and ‘Chippy’ would train six hours a day, practising on sun-kissed sands and hard grassy pitches when the heat was sweltering. Butler would design sessions to focus on technique, using both feet and spending days going through the same repetitive actions.
It gave focus to a young boy who had been in danger of becoming lost in Cassava Piece. Those who knew him, a by-product of his background, saw a fierce competitor from an early age, resolute in sticking to one task until he either got it right or won. At night, Bailey would go into the garage by himself, when everyone else was asleep, bouncing a small pink ball against the wall just to refine his table tennis technique to finally beat Butler.
He managed to win, eventually. Today, Bailey reads and writes in six languages.
“He can speak German, French, Dutch, Flemish, English and Jamaican. This was important because the more you delve into the business of professional football you realise the quicker you can adapt and speak the language of the team you’re in, the better you will do. So I made sure I taught Kyle and Leon. Whichever country we were in, I sent them to a normal school, so they had no choice but to learn.”
Butler felt Jamaican boys were hamstrung in becoming professional footballers due to the lack of coaching expertise and training all year round. He could not understand why the country, which historically produced the fastest humans on the planet, had only made one World Cup in a sport that increasingly relied on speed and power.
While Europeans would train 11 months of the year and be exposed to sustained technical training, Jamaican players would be less refined by the time they reached their teenage years because of training for only the best part of three months.
Bailey training with Raheem Sterling in Jamaica (Craig Butler)
Butler did not want to break up Phoenix so kept the academy running through staff as he travelled to Europe with his three best players and adopted sons — Bailey (aged 12), Kyle and another boy, called Kevaughn Atkinson — in 2010. This caused a dispute with the Jamaican FA, who banned Butler from coaching in an attempt to keep the best players in the country.
“We realised that if the boys are to succeed in football, they had to succeed in another country,” says Butler. “We first went to Austria and decided not to sign with the first club but train with many so they would realise our players from Phoenix are good. That way, we could get more opportunities.”
Butler and the boys would walk through miles of snowy fields in Austria just to get to the nearby stadiums for trials. Butler did not have a work permit, so had to take menial jobs to fund the dream. Cleaning bathrooms and toilets now served as a reality check, far from his lucrative role at Toshiba. Their diets mainly consisted of tuna as it was all Butler could afford.
Butler, in the meantime, continued to train Leon, Kyle and Kevaughn. “I gained more coaching qualifications, but I had to find school lunch money for them,” he says. “It was hell; it took its toll on my body because there were times I wouldn’t eat.”
Until the boys joined Genk in 2015, they spent five years turning out for several sides across Europe, becoming known to local and national scouts. They would drive through Belgium, Slovakia and Holland, attending multiple schools and never staying in one place too long. Pushing for a breakthrough took a toll emotionally and could be physically draining.
“Leon had an uncanny ability to be a natural GPS,” says Butler. “We were in Slovakia and drove to Genk in Belgium and back again. That’s a long drive. We didn’t have a GPS in the little car we had, but it was Leon who was able to tell Shelley how to get back because he had looked at the signs on the way there.”
Shelley Peralto was Butler’s childhood sweetheart. When the pursuit of Europe reached Belgium, their relationship was rekindled, with Peralto relocating from Canada with her youngest son. Peralto now works for Phoenix as an administrator and shares close relationships with some of Europe’s biggest clubs.
“She believed in what we were doing,” says Butler. “She became the surrogate mother for all the boys. She allowed me to go back and forth to Jamaica. We would train for three months then I’d go back to Phoenix.
Bailey signing autographs at Phoenix (Craig Butler)
“But it was a situation where Leon and Kyle didn’t see home for a long time. They were going to school in Europe and training every day with the clubs that came their way. I took Leon and the boys on around 200 different trials — in Belgium, Slovakia, Germany, Malta, Austria and Holland. By the time Leon and Kyle joined Genk, we had been to almost every club and I was the only coach they’d ever had.”
Shortly before Genk, Bailey and Kyle had trials at Slovakian Super Liga side AS Trencin.
“Leon was spotted by our owner, Mr (Tscheu) La Ling, during his trial at Ajax,” says Andrej Zacik, Trencin’s international manager. “At that time, our club had closer cooperation with Ajax as Mr La Ling is a former player and legend of Ajax. It would take us almost one year for the paperwork to be signed and the whole immigration process was difficult.
“We signed the contract with Leon and Kyle back in Jamaica, where our owner travelled to meet their family and complete the deal, but we never finalised the agreement because there was interest from Genk. The boys then left pretty fast before they turned 18, but his transfer still brought some financial means.”
After fleeting spells at Austrian lower-tier sides Anif Jugend and Liefering and false dawns at Ajax and Trencin, Bailey, Kyle and Atkinson all signed for Genk. Professional contracts vindicated the decision to step outside of Jamaica and offered the level of security they had toiled for.
From left: Bailey, Butler, Kyle Butler, Edwin van der Sar, Kevaughn and Marc Overmars at Ajax in February 2014
Bailey had always been a wide player but refined his natural pace and directness while keeping his and Butler’s footballing motto — “always be unpredictable”. Just two years later, Bailey joined Bayer Leverkusen and was named Bundesliga’s young player of the season, demonstrating just how quick his ascent was.
“They went through a lot of troubles because they’ve had to fight,” says Myles. “They had to go above and beyond to get where they needed and it has been built by the entire family who all have had to sacrifice, and willingly sacrifice, their lives to help the academy and to help Leon.”
When Bailey moved to Leverkusen in January 2017 for a fee of around £17million, Kyle and Atkinson pivoted in career direction. Following spells at four Austria sides, Kyle is now an award-winning music producer and works with the biggest R&B and pop acts in his homeland. Atkinson, meanwhile, signed for professional Malta-based side Mosta and has become a Maltese citizen.
Throughout their excursions, Butler has videoed every day of Bailey’s life. Instagram reels show a young ‘Chippy’ and Kyle on local Jamaican fields.
“I documented the entire journey,” says Butler. “We took those three boys and made it… we did it. Two of them are playing professionally and Kyle is doing very well.”
Over two months, the final time Butler speaks to The Athletic is during a drive into Phoenix’s academy facility as he prepares to start coaching later that morning. Including his wife, Shelley, Butler has 21 staff members, with Bailey and Kyle on Phoenix’s board and brand ambassadors in Europe.
Shelley has been in England on business, attending meetings with Premier League sides and helping Dujuan ‘Whisper’ Richards, one of Phoenix’s newest and most promising graduates, settle at Chelsea following his transfer upon his 18th birthday last month. Phoenix represents Richards and Bailey in contract and transfer negotiations.
Richards has 10 caps for Jamaica and scored his first goal in June, becoming the country’s youngest-ever goalscorer. As you would expect, his development has proven to be a great source of pride for Butler given Richards spent six years training at Phoenix.
“Now my academy is known all over the world”, he says. “But that is now — just imagine me all those years ago, with three little boys and a giant bag of everything we owned on our back in Europe.”
(Design: Sean Reilly for The Athletic. Photos: Getty Images and Craig Butler)
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