Frank Lampard's call to LBC: The full transcript

James O’Brien: The contention is that you’re painted as a bit of rat in the papers...

Frank Lampard: I’m not sure about being painted in the papers as a bit or rat. The reason I’m calling in is my sister just called me up and said she had been listening to the show and she was slightly distressed particularly by your comments calling me weak and scum. Is that right?

First of all you’re incorrect to say that anyway, my situation is where is I’ve split up, as a lot of people do that across the board, regardless what profession you are.

Unfortunately I have split up with my girlfriend and my kids will never ever live in inferior circumstances.

I just caught the end of your conversation with a gentlemen then and you said that, about people that are working and about their kids and it should be all about their kids.

And that’s exactly how I live my live now, everything do in my career in football terms, before I had kids it was all for myself and since I’ve had kids, every penny I earn and every ounce and every yard I run on the football pitch is for my kids.

Unfortunately I’ve split up with my girlfriend so they’re now living in a temporary flat in Fulham Chelsea and it’s not a bad flat at all and I’m actually buying a house at the moment which is of equal living standard if not more to mine.

James: But they’re not waking up in bedrooms that they’ve known all their lives?

Frank: Unfortunately you’re wrong because you don’t know the terms of my thing but when I split up with my girlfriend… let me explain to you what happened she was actually out in a club or a bar and someone came up and approached her and didn’t actually say they was a journalist and actually got her talking after she’d had a few drinks and caught her at the wrong time.

Unfortunately when you spilt up obviously you’re not going to carry on living in the same place, that’s a fact l life. Unfortunately that means, and it hurts me every day when I wake up and my kids are not there, but when you split up, as anyone will tell you, you’re not going to carry on living together.

Luckily I have a relationship with my ex-girlfriend where we have decided where we’re going to share custody of them. So for three nights of the week, half the nights of week, and I’m away probably two to three nights with my football anyway, the kids wake up in my house.

I look after my kids solely, I have a nanny that comes but I spend all he time with my kids. I wake up if my kids wake up at three in the morning, if they wake up at six in the morning regardless of if whether have a football match or not. They wake up in the bedrooms I decorated for them and that’s what they'll always do.

James: But not at the moment, but that’s the plan for the immediate future?

Frank: No that’s what they’re doing at moment, I don’t know what made you think that they’re not.

James: I’m only going by what has been printed in the newspapers.

Frank: Where did it say they’re not staying with me anyway?

James (reads Elen’s quotes): She said: “I’m in small flat waiting for my own flat with our two daughters, he is in our house which he has turned into a batchelor pad”.

Frank: Where did it say they are not staying in my house?

James: If you describe something as a bachelor pad, Frank, the general assumption is going to be that it’s not a family home.

Frank: That was her description when she was drunk, yes. The problem is you read the papers now, if you’re going to be a man that reads the papers and takes everything as gospel truth and start calling people weak and scum that’s a sign of how you are, that isn't a sign of the reality.

Luckily enough the last caller heard there shows there are some genuine people out there.

James: That is the nature of what I do, my phone lines are wide open and people can call up and call me an idiot people can call me what ever they want. You’ll accept that the 60 million people in this country don’t have the privilege of phoning up Frank Lampard for his side of the story, they’re going to read what they see in the papers and draw up their own conclusions.

Frank: That doesn’t make it right that they draw the conclusion you are making, which is a completely negative one. You are calling me weak and scum.

James: I was asking questions to which you are providing some answers. For me if you’ve got little girls and this is going to sound awful, I have little girls of three and one, I can’t conceive of any circumstances in which I wouldn’t fight tooth and flipping nail to hold my family together.

Frank: Excuse me, what do you think I’ve been doing for the last two years? Let me tell you something now, my mother died a year ago today, which has been a huge impact on my life, my family’s life and my sister’s life. And unfortunately that’s had a huge impact on my relationship at home.

And there is nothing, I wish I could do a lot about that, but unfortunately I can’t do nothing about that. But I find it insulting that you’re telling me you would fight tooth and nail and insinuating that I wouldn’t fight tooth and nail. That’s what I’ve spent time doing.

You don’t know anything about me and you’re insinuating I’m weak and scum because I haven’t fought tooth and nail. The hardest part of this whole break up for me is not waking up with my kids every day.

So before you start insinuating and calling people weak and scum on a radio station, getting on a high horse which you are, cos I hope one day that your wife or your girlfriend doesn’t come to you and say I don’t want to be with you anymore and unfortunately that means you wont see the kids for a few days a week. That will hurt with you as well but you’d have to deal with it.

James: It would break my heart Frank.

Frank: Yeah and it’s breaking my heart, do you think I’m happy?

James: Of course I don’t think you’re happy that’s why I’m delighted to take the opportunity to have your say.

Frank: Then you should stop insinuating...

James: I’m not insinuating anything Frank, I’m merely describing a news story my friend and I appreciate you...

Frank: You’re saying any man that let’s his kids life in inferior circumstances to him is weak and scum.

James: Yes I am saying that and you’re telling me you’re not that man, so in a way you agree with me.

Frank: Yeah, but you’re insinuating about me...

James: So I was describing a news story. Let’s not get...

Frank: Listen, at the time you were saying that statement you were talking about me. Correct or not?

The last conversation I heard was about me. My sister has been listening for the last half an hour and the conversation was about me.

James: I’m not going to apologise to you for reading out a story from a newspaper and drawing generalistic questions. For what it’s worth, you have explained yourself absolutely brilliantly.

Frank: What I’d like you to do in future is think when it becomes the personal issues, about people’s families, about people’s kids, and you’re degrading them as human beings.

I grade myself as a human being as how I look after my kids.

I have to wake up and then listen to idiots like you say ‘I read this and this is what he is doing’.

And it is wrong.

But I have to put up with it and I keep my mouth shut.

But, today, the only reason I ring you is because my sister is distressed and as I said to you earlier it is the anniversary of my mum's death.

Do you think my sister needs to hear idiots like you saying it on the radio station?

James: Of course I don’t, I was completely unaware of your family anniversary.

Frank: Sometimes you should think about things before you speak about them because you are speaking about personal people now.

Next time I'll speak to you man to man, forget the radio show, I’ll speak to you man to man about that.

James: I’d welcome that opportunity Frank and I will apologise to your family for drawing up difficult domestic situations on a day which was clearly of enormous emotional impact already. I’ll offer that apology unreservedly. But I'm not likely to have an anniversary like that in my desktop diary.

Anything that has been said on this radio station in response to comments that were genuinely given by your former partner, there is no speculation there.

Frank: I agree with you there completely, the unfortunate thing about this is that my ex-girlfriend she didn’t grow up in this life at all.

Unfortunately I have to live this in the public eye. Now someone has approached my ex-girlfriend, pretending to be friendly, caught her at a moment where she is a little bit drunk and down or whatever and got a load stuff out of her.

At the same time you’re saying that people have a right to discuss that, unfortunately it’s what many many other women have done in a bar or a coffee house or in a club or anywhere when they have split up with someone.

Unfortunately mine gets splashed across the papers and leaves it open for people like you to make accusations and innuendos and things about people, which is very unfortunate.

My ex-girlfriend is very distressed about the situation cos she didn’t want that to come out. She can have her private thoughts about me and speak to her close friends. Someone has conned her basically. She has been conned. And by being conned and then comes out as a pure quote like she has sold her story.

She gave her story away in a moment of weakness. That’s the statement of the culture of England and Britain that someone would try to con a personal statement out of you to then be broadcast everywhere for everyone to debate.

James: I hear you. That’s an accurate description of how modern media works. Rightly or wrongly.

Frank: And you’re part of it. If you choose to earn your living like that, then that’s fair enough.

James: Well I’m not as good at football as you or I’d probably rather be doing what you’re doing. Is there no chance at all, Frank, of this relationship being rescued?

Frank: Listen I’ve spoken much too much about my private life today already – I didn’t expect to have a phone call with your this morning. So I’ll leave it there thank you.

James: So you won’t give us a quick rundown on your thoughts for the champions league semi final then.

Frank: No, I certainly won’t.