I was driving into work and decided not to sign my Sky Sports contract – it’s the scariest decision I ever made
KELLY CATES has admitted quitting Sky Sports was the scariest decision she ever made.
The presenter worked for Sky Sports News in the early noughties but quit her role in 2006.
A big reason behind her resignation was a desire to settle down and have children, with Kates marrying a year after.
She went on to work for BBC Radio 5 Live and Channel 5 before returning to Sky Sports in 2016.
Recalling the decision to quit, Kates told The Overlap: “I left Sky Sports News in 2006, after the Germany World Cup. I’d been there for eight years and I had just turned 30, or I was just turning 31. I was engaged but not yet married. I knew I wanted to have children quite soon at that point.
“It had just been, for a long time, kind of filtering away and running in the back of my head. I came to the end of my contract and was working under my new contract and within the space of about three days, made the decision.
“I was driving into work one day, I walked in and I said, ‘I don’t want to sign this new contract, I want to go!
“I had nothing to go to. I just walked away, but I was so sure that I had to go and make that change. I did it when I left university to go to Sky, which is different, because then you get something that’s really exciting, shiny and new, dangled in front of you and you think, ‘I’m going to take this jump.
“But that’s the scariest one I did – where I just went, ‘that’s it’. I just made that decision.”
Cates, 49, hosted EFL games for Sky Sports before being pushed up to the Premier League.
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She is a prominent figure in their coverage, particularly on Friday Night Football and Saturday Night Football.
Cates said her decision to quit in 2006 made her more confident as she knew it was the correct choice.
She continued: “It’s when you wake up the next morning and you still feel good about it.
“That’s when you know you made the right decision, when it feels like a weight off, rather than a sinking feeling.”