Kelly Cates reveals why she quit Sky Sports job – ‘I don’t want to sign this new contract'

Sky Sports News presenter Kelly Cates opened up about the time she abruptly decided to depart the channel.

Renowned in the sports broadcasting scene for her coverage of football, particularly the Premier League, the 49-year-old made a surprising exit from Sky after eight years in 2006. Cates took her talents to BBC Radio 5Live's 606 football phone-in show and the English Football League highlights programme on Channel 5.

A decade after her exit, she circled back to spearhead Sky Sports' EFL coverage, before switching to their Premier League programming, where she remains today. Cates, who was born in Glasgow, looked back on her decision and explained her thought process behind her shock exit.

She told the Overlap's 'Not Just Football podcast': "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."

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