For the first time since leaving Chelsea in 2004, having made 12 appearances and picked up £10m over four years, the Dutchman opens up about his time at Stamford Bridge and explains why he wants to become a manager

Winston Bogarde is smartly dressed in a black suit and looks well as he arrives early for our meeting on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Across the street is a small football pitch but there is no one playing. Bogarde takes his seat in a quiet area of the hotel restaurant and, for the first time in his life, opens up about the four notorious years at Chelsea.

Wearing an expensive-looking watch and a ring on his wedding finger Bogarde is polite and smiles easily, though he offers glimpses of hurt and anxiety as the former Champions League, Eredivisie and La Liga winner is frank about the lost seasons that ended his career so sourly.

Accompanied by his manager, he confesses to loneliness, despair, an understanding of why he is viewed as greedy and, most poignantly, regret. This is the regret caused by drawing a £40,000-a-week salary that earned him nearly £10m between 2000 and 2004 while making only 12 appearances for Chelsea.

The first surprise is Bogarde is back in football, eager to be involved in a sport he virtually fell out of love with. “I am a trainer-coach,” the 44-year-old says.

Louis van Gaal was Bogarde’s great mentor, harnessing his talents as a tough defender at Ajax where he was part of the 1995 squad who won the Champions League, before later taking him to Barcelona. However, while Van Gaal is now the Manchester United manager, Bogarde is unemployed.

“At the moment I don’t have a club,” he says, pausing for a moment. “I’m doing master classes in defence, individually, until I’m going to get a job.”

Winston Bogarde insists he would have loved to have gone on loan whilst at Chelsea, and says would have taken a 30% cut in wages. Photograph: Irina Popova for the Guardian

The challenge, though, for Bogarde is to rebuild a shattered public image. On 31 August 2000 he was signed by Gianluca Vialli for Chelsea. At 29 this was the final big move of a high-flying career. However, on leaving Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2004, nearly two years had passed since he last kicked a ball. That appearance – his final as a professional – was on 6 November 2002, as a substitute in a 2-1 League Cup win over Gillingham. It was his only run-out of the 2002-03 season. In Bogarde’s second and fourth years – 2001-02 and 2003-04 – there were none. The best return was the 11 appearances of the first season, in which he made his four starts for the club.

Bogarde came to represent the greedy, modern-day footballer. The conclusion was if he was desperate to play he would have agreed a loan move or cut a deal with Chelsea and been released. So, what did happen?

“Vialli bought me and when I had been there a week he got sacked,” Bogarde says of the Italian coach’s removal on 12 September 2000. “You have to look who the new manager’s going to be and if you’re still going to get a chance.”

Six days later Claudio Ranieri was appointed and hopes began to fade. “I didn’t play that much,” Bogarde says. “And I was already like 30, 31. So I wanted to end my career good.”

Winston Bogarde won the Champions League with Ajax in 1996 under current Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal. Photograph: Irina Popova for the Guardian

Together with Ranieri’s appointment, Bogarde points to Chelsea’s finances in those pre-Roman Abramovich days. “They had to cut costs. My situation was not very good and we tried to solve it many ways. Like to maybe go on loan or sell me, or whatever. But in the end it didn’t work out … ”

As he trails off I ask Bogarde if there was a particular fall-out with Ranieri. “Not fall-out. Sometimes you had situations when the manager is telling you: ‘OK now you’re going to get a fair chance’. And two weeks later that changed,” he says. “I was feeling hurt as a player. If it was from him or the club, I don’t know – it was very difficult to get a chance.”

Bogarde says Trevor Birch’s appointment as Chelsea chief executive in March 2002 sealed his fate. “Cutting costs was his speciality. Chelsea’s a fantastic club and of course he only did his job. But sometimes you’re dealing with people and have to look for solutions – for the club, for the player. And we talked about those things. But they were very uncompromising.”

Bogarde states he would have gone on loan but Chelsea insisted his full wage be paid. “A club could not pay my whole salary, they could maybe pay 70%,” he says. “And they asked Chelsea to pay the other 30% and Chelsea said: ‘No. If you want to take him it’s going to be 100% or nothing. He is going nowhere’.”

Bogarde claims he would have been content to take a 30% cut in wages. “Of course. For a player, for me, it’s terrible not to play. Yet I had to return for training. Return looking for the next solution, you understand?”

Did Chelsea try to make him take a cut in his salary? “No, they didn’t try that,” he says.

Bogarde, who is from Rotterdam, made his professional debut for Sparta Rotterdam in 1991 before joining Ajax three years later. An unused substitute by Van Gaal in the triumphant 1995 Champions League final – Milan were defeated 1-0 – Bogarde won two Eredivisie titles, the Uefa Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup before leaving for Milan in 1997. After half a season in Italy he rejoined Van Gaal at Barcelona in January 1998.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Winston Bogarde, rear, was a substitute during Ajax’s 1995 Champions League triumph. Action Images Photograph: Action Images

At Camp Nou, Bogarde collected two La Liga winner’s medals, the Copa del Rey and a second Uefa Super Cup while playing alongside some of the game’s aristocrats Rivaldo, Luís Figo and Hristo Stoichkov.

He was also a member of Holland’s Euro 96 squad – Bogarde played in the 4-1 defeat by England in the group phase – and would have been selected for the World Cup semi-final against Brazil at France 98 but broke a leg in training.

Given his pedigree and experience it seems surprising Bogarde was not viewed as an asset by Chelsea. Yet despite pictures from the time that suggest he gained weight, and the sense he stagnated at the club, Bogarde insists fitness and attitude were not issues.

“I was working hard because if the club needs you, the team needs you, or if another teams need you – you need to be ready,” he says. “I had some injuries also. I hurt my knee – three or four months I was out. So these things come mentally in your head.”

And the perception he was happier to be paid than play? “I can imagine people from the outside seeing it like that,” says Bogarde. “People think: ‘Oh he’s just sitting there for his money’. But it was not like that.”

Bogarde shows a first moment of regret. “If I could do it over I would have done it very differently,” he says. “And the people of Chelsea would also maybe take a different decision.”

Asked what Bogarde would change there is no clear answer. “It’s a combination for the both of us [him and the club] – we would do it very differently and come with the best solution.”

Bogarde laughs when asked if he resided in England when at the club, saying he lived for two years in Windsor and for two years at Chelsea Harbour. “Yes, of course,” he says.

The question is asked because of the stories he flew in for training from the Netherlands each morning. This is flatly denied. “Of course not. I don’t understand how people come to these ridiculous stories, or lies or whatever. I’ve always been in the training at Chelsea, I’ve always been on time. I’ve never skipped training or I was never sick. I never [have] problems in any way with the club or in private matters. My relationship with people of Chelsea – the real people – is from the coffee lady to the kit man.”

Graeme Le Saux and Winston Bogarde mess about in a Chelsea training session in 2002. Photograph: Andy Couldridge/Action Images

Bogarde did become lonely. “Mentally it was very hard,” he says. “To keep the motivation it’s very difficult but since I was very young I had to cope with a lot of difficult situations and each I overcame.” Bogarde, who has five children, however, had the support of his family. “I had a relationship and I had my kids, yes,” he says.

The Dutchman, however, cannot recall his final appearance in professional football. “I really couldn’t tell you – maybe you can tell me – but it must be a long time ago.” Told this was 6 November 2002 and that he came on as a 69th-minute substitute in a League Cup tie against Gillingham, Bogarde says: “Yeah, it’s possible.”

On finally leaving Chelsea had he completely fallen out of love with football? “Not completely. But because it was a tough time for me, yeah, I’d had enough of the tough world of football,” he says. There was a final attempt to revive his career in summer 2004. “Because you didn’t want to end like that so I have the feeling: ‘OK, if I can push still one year out of me it would be great.’ But I got injured [training] at Ajax. And for my body it was, no, it’s OK now.”

That was 11 years ago. What has he been doing since? “Having fun. But it didn’t last that long, because I’ve been in football all my life,” Bogarde says.

There were ventures into the business world, though he denies some stories: “No, I didn’t have a gaming club.” But he did have “an entertainment company, yeah. We did parties and concerts. It was fun.”

There was also a book about his life called: “This Negro bows to Nobody”. Asked about the title, Bogarde says: “I’m a black person, so I don’t have problem with that word. I didn’t – for me – [think of] it as a bad word.”

Now, despite holding a Uefa Pro Licence, he’s struggling to find an opportunity. Bogarde unsuccessfully applied for the Motherwell manager’s job and recently did the same at Oldham Athletic. Bogarde accepts clubs may be wary of giving him an opportunity because of what happened at Chelsea.

“If people have that in the backs of their mind, that could be a negative for me,” he says. “But that has been when I was a player. I’m a trainer-coach now. Many people, players, ex-pros have been in problems and I see they are trainer-coaches now. So why should that be like a heavy sword on my back?

“It’s still dragging with me, maybe all my life. Everybody makes mistakes and I’ve learned from it but you need to go on.”

Winston Bogarde has struggled to find opportunities in football, despite holding a Uefa Pro Licence. Photograph: Irina Popova for the Guardian

It is clear Bogarde wants to remake his life and reputation. He lights up when he talks about football. “Am I content? Yeah, I’m content but I want to be on the pitch. I have my badges already a few years and I’m just waiting for a chance to do what I can.”

The Chelsea experience will allow him to speak directly to footballers about the game’s pitfalls. “You can teach them not to make kinds of decisions in a critical moment in their career,” he says. “I’m trying to use the experience of my whole career to pass it on to the young players.”

When asked the one thing he would say to any young footballer, Bogarde’s answer is telling.

“I can understand that when you’re young and making a lot of money there are a lot of circumstance around you – people are pulling at you, girls are coming, you want to have good time,” he says. “But you have to understand that all those things are thanks to football. So football needs to be in first place to keep that focus, to keep that discipline and it can take you very far.”

Bogarde’s hope now is that football will take him back in. He certainly deserves a second chance.