SOME PREMIERSHIP PLAYERS ARE being treated for a double addiction to gambling and pornography. There is growing evidence that the lifestyle of the modern-day wealthy footballer is unhealthy, unmanageable and out of control. Too much money and insufficient “life skills” to use their free time constructively are being blamed by experts and players.
This latest trend is revealed by Peter Kay, the chief executive of the Sporting Chance Clinic, established in Hampshire by Tony Adams, the former Arsenal defender and a reformed alcoholic, five years ago, in a special programme for BBC Radio 5 Live this evening. Kay has overseen the treatment of dozens of high-profile players with alcohol and gambling problems, but the addition of porn will cause huge concern to the FA and the Professional Footballers’ Association, which fund and support Sporting Chance.
“It’s very unusual for a Premier League player not to have a laptop,” Kay said. “These young men often lead very solitary lives, especially when they’re sent to their hotel rooms from 8 until 8 the next morning before a match.
“What we’ve found is that gambling and porn are integrally linked. A player turns on his laptop and accesses an online gambling site. We deal with people where gambling has become a compulsion and a mental obsession. They might lose money, turn off the laptop and vow never to do it again. But five minutes later they have rebooted it and they go to their credit limit . . . £17,000, £20,000, £25,000.”
It is at this point when internet pornography is seen as a welcome release. Kay said: “They feel low. They don’t go to another gambling site but to something else. If you had the choice of “Kiss My Whip In Sweden” or Saving Private Ryan, there’s a good chance you’d choose the porn site. It then leads to going to more risky material. Next thing you know it is 4 or 5 in the morning. You’re in no fit state to play football.”
And one well travelled Premiership striker, who has spent time at Sporting Chance because of his porn addiction, told me: “When I had my problem a couple of years ago, I was earning £20,000 a week. With so much free time I would get through a lot of money.
“With laptops, you can get hooked on anything. It careers out of control. I was like a kid in a sweet shop. Laptops in hotel rooms are a bad thing. You’re in that room for one reason — to relax. If you have an addictive personality, computers don’t allow you to do that.”
The feeling of release from masturbation triggers a similar chemical reaction in the brain to the “buzz” received from drugs, alcohol and gambling. Kay said: “If you use porn in that way once then it’s not unusual, nor is it a problem, but when it’s 14, 15, 16 times a day then it becomes a problem. It’s not long before players minds are off football.”
Kay, known as “Chef” by his clients after spending years working in top London hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants, works from two properties tucked away in a wooded hideaway at Forest Mere Country Club near Liphook. Four players at a time can use the main cottage, which is functional rather than luxurious. And one reformed alcoholic, Clarke Carlisle, who plays for Watford, said that Kay and his team saved his life.
“Two or three years ago I had gambling debts approaching six figures, I had almost lost my job at Queens Park Rangers and had a daughter I didn’t see much of,” Carlisle said. “I was on the sauce 24/7. My whole life was hanging by a thread.”
He was given the Sporting Chance phone number by his manager at the time, Ian Holloway, and has been one of the clinic’s many successes.
An addiction to alcohol usually means that there is a secondary problem. In Carlisle’s case it was not porn, it was internet gambling. “I was losing thousands,” he said. “It’s not reality. You click a button and your money’s gone. These lads are locked in their hotel rooms before a match for hours on end with nothing to do. It’s a terrible cycle. If you lose money then you have to make yourself feel better. I needed to train in the morning, so I could go out and drink again.”
Kay believes that education is the key, giving young players as much information as possible about using their time properly and organising their lives. The player with the porn addiction said: “It must be drilled into players by their clubs that off the pitch they need to use their spare time well. It all stems from how much they get paid. If you lose a grand gambling or on porn sites what does it matter? If they don’t listen to advice then that’s their prerogative.”
Carlisle added: “Clubs need to groom their players and make sure they use all that free time constructively. They get taken from their home environment at a very young age and suddenly become a role model for the nation’s youngsters. How do they play that role when they’re youngsters themselves?” While Kay’s attempts to alert Premiership clubs to potential problems with their players have been generally well received by some, others are not so helpful.
“I wrote to one club offering them the chance for us to visit them and chat to their players. The manager wrote back saying that none of his squad had a problem,” Kay said. “Little did he know that at the time we were treating two of his players.”
- Brian Alexander presents Premier League Addicts on BBC Radio 5 Live, tonight at 7pm.
RICH AND BORED
HARD EVIDENCE OF players gambling on the internet or accessing pornography in their hotel rooms is difficult to find. If it exists, Paul Timson, a physiotherapist with Crystal Palace, believes that it can have an adverse affect on players.
“It’s not anything I’ve come across,” Timson said. “If it is happening, it’s going to be kept quiet. If it’s reaching addictive levels, it’s not good.
“Players should be looking for a good night’s sleep and to be as refreshed and lively as possible for the match. Staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning on the internet is hardly ideal.”
Problems occur for a number of reasons.
RUSSELL KEMPSON
