A rising star of American football has been charged with breeding dozens of pitbull terriers for often fatal dogfights in a case that exposes an underworld of cruelty to animals.

Michael Vick, a celebrated quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons, is accused of raising dogs at his Bad Newz Kennels in Virginia to take part in fights with purses as high as $26,000 (£13,000).

Eight dogs that underperformed in test bouts were killed “by various methods, including hanging, drowning and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground”, the indictment says. A female pitbull was allegedly doused with water and electrocuted after she lost a fight that cost Mr Vick and his three co-accused $13,000.

The charges, carrying a maximum prison term of six years, could lead to the suspension of the left-handed quarterback once hailed as a potential sporting superstar. Mr Vick, 27, nicknamed Oozie, grew up on a housing estate in Newport News, Virginia. He led his college team at Virginia Tech to national prominence before signing a $62 million, six-year deal with the Atlanta Falcons in 2001.

The animal cruelty indictment is the most dramatic in a series of setbacks to Mr Vick’s career. Last season he was fined $10,000 by the National Football League and agreed to donate another $10,000 to charity for making a middle-finger gesture to fans after a game. He reached a settlement with a woman who claimed in a lawsuit that he knowingly gave her herpes.

In January guards at Miami airport found a secret compartment in a water bottle that Mr Vick tried to get aboard a flight. Tests on the substance inside found no traces of illegal drugs and no charges were filed, but Mr Vick lost his role as a corporate spokesman for an airline.

Prosecutors allege that Mr Vick purchased a property in southwestern Virginia for dogfighting just as he was turning professional in 2001 — part of an apparent network of dogfighting kennels. Police first searched the property in April after arresting Mr Vick’s cousin, Davon Boddie, who lived there, on drug charges when a police dog sniffed out marijuana in his car. The raid found 54 pitbulls with chains attached to car axles in the ground.

Also on the property were an electronic treadmill to exercise the dogs, a “break” stick to pry open their jaws during fights and a “rape stand” in which a bitch is strapped for breeding when she is too aggressive.

Mr Vick told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the raid that he rarely visited the property, and blamed family members. After one fight, a friend, “after consulting with Vick about the losing female pitbull’s condition, executed the losing dog by wetting the dog down with water and electrocuting the animal”, the charges say.

Fallen heroes

— Former Arsenal and England footballer Peter Storey received a six-month suspended sentence and £700 fine in 1979 for running a brothel. Further convictions included counterfeiting gold coins and smuggling pornography

— South African snooker star Silvino Francisco won the British Open in 1985. In 1997, after a career slump and a spell working in a fish-and-chip shop, he was arrested carrying £155,000 of cannabis through Dover

— 1879 Wimbledon runner-up Vere Thomas St Leger Goold was sent to the French penal colony of Devil’s Island for life after a Marseilles railway porter opened his luggage to find the dismembered remains of a woman Goold had murdered

— Jockey Lester Piggott was convicted of tax fraud and jailed for three years in 1987. The incident cost him his OBE

— The night before American footballer Eugene Robinson was due to start in the 1999 Super Bowl, and hours after he received an award for high moral character, he was arrested for offering an undercover policewoman money for oral sex

Sources: stateofthegame.co.uk; Slam! Sports, Canada; Times archives