The British gymnast Nile Wilson steps on stage and introduces himself.<\/p>\n
In a broad Leeds accent, the 27-year-old describes himself as an Olympic medallist, the owner of several successful businesses, and the face of a YouTube channel with more than 1.5million subscribers.<\/p>\n
Then he pauses \u2014 and, as if he\u2019s slipped off the pommel horse, he begins again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m self-destructive,\u201d he says. \u201cCompeting at the highest level of sport, I spent four to five nights a week at the casino alone. Once I drink alcohol, I struggle to stop for days or even weeks at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe both introductions are true for the same reason. What can be our strength quickly turns into our weaknesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the dichotomy of sporting excellence.<\/p>\n
By starting young, athletes are malleable.<\/p>\n
Like gymnastics, football asks its participants to adopt an elite performance mindset from an early age. In general, those who turn professional in both sports have generally begun to participate before they are six years old, and are in systematic coaching before they turn 11. And at the end of that, there is no guarantee of a pro career.<\/p>\n
There are consequences to this model.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, this type of coaching means children are pushed into developing an \u201caddictive personality\u201d; a single-minded focus in which nothing is done in moderation.<\/p>\n
Wilson describes this reality, flitting from the sporting (endless hours of training) to the innocent (watching The Lion King movie every night as a small child) to the more sinister (trying to drink more than his friends when out socialising).<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cElite athletes, often driven by the rush of competition and desire to win, certainly display behaviours resembling addiction,\u201d explain sport psychologist Marc Sagal and addiction expert Ned DeWitt. \u201cTheir focus, discipline, and pursuit of excellence can border on obsession. These qualities can contribute meaningfully to success \u2014 but can also create problems like life imbalance or relationship challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI brought the same intensity to a night out as I did to gymnastics,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIt was a competition, I wanted to win.\u201d<\/p>\n In this context, Tottenham Hotspur<\/a> and England<\/a> footballer James Maddison<\/a>\u2019s eye-raising comment that he \u201clikes to be the main man at a roast dinner\u201d begins to make sense.<\/p>\n But as Wilson foreshadows, this mentality can have serious and even traumatic consequences.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m obsessive, I\u2019m competitive, I\u2019m a risk-taker, and I\u2019m a show-off,\u201d Wilson summarises. \u201cYou can see where I\u2019m going with this. It sounds like a pretty good concoction to create a champion \u2014 and maybe an addict.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to football\u2019s relationship with addiction, the crumbs are peeking out from under the carpet.<\/p>\n Brentford<\/a>\u2019s Ivan Toney<\/a> and Newcastle United<\/a>\u2019s Sandro Tonali<\/a> are both serving lengthy suspensions for betting (eight and 10 months respectively) \u2014 with the legal process revealing that both players were gambling addicts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest game has started against an illness,\u201d Tonali\u2019s agent, Beppe Riso, said after the news broke. \u201cSandro is used to big games and usually he wins them. Sandro\u2019s experience will save the lives of other kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Nottingham Forest<\/a>\u2019s Harry Toffolo<\/a> was also handed a suspended five-month ban in September, with the FA Commission stating the bets \u201cwere the result, at least in large part, of significant mental health challenges\u201d.<\/p>\n Their experiences are not unique in football \u2014 players including Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, Paul Merson, Peter Shilton, Andros Townsend<\/a> and Dietmar Hamann have all spoken about struggles with gambling.<\/p>\n Other addictions are prevalent across the game. This month, The Athletic\u00a0<\/em>reported on the scale of tramadol use<\/a> within the sport, a strong, prescription only painkiller which former Liverpool<\/a> and England goalkeeper Chris Kirkland said left him suicidal. Earlier in November, Rooney spoke about his reliance on alcohol during his early twenties, while Dele Alli<\/a>\u2019s emotional interview with Gary Neville in July saw the pair discuss Alli\u2019s dependence on sleeping pills. Gambling, however, is seen as particularly dangerous because it has no direct physiological impact on performance.<\/p>\n \u201cBesides the horrific guilt, the next day I could perform to the best of my ability,\u201d Wilson explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe game has changed,\u201d adds Michael Bennett, head of player welfare at the Professional Footballers\u2019 Association (PFA) \u2014 players\u2019 trade union in England. \u201cIt\u2019s very much more data-driven. Gone are the days when you could go out drinking at the weekend, then play on a Tuesday. All the data is checked, from training and in matches. So it\u2019s very difficult to do what you used to, back in the day. That leads itself to the possibility of other vices.\u201d<\/p>\n Football is at the sharp end of wider problems. Research released this month by Ipsos and GambeAware shows that, amongst the general population, nearly two-thirds of problem gamblers (64 per cent), had never spoken to anyone about their issues. Though the overall number of gamblers between 18 and 24 has fallen, those remaining are far more likely to bet more than they can afford (42 per cent).<\/p>\n The Sporting Chance clinic, set up by former Arsenal<\/a> and England captain Tony Adams in 2000 to support players with various mental, emotional and addiction issues, had more than 35 players require residential rehabilitation last season, with over 50 per cent related to gambling.<\/p>\n In 2014, research from the Professional Players Federation, an organisation of athletes\u2019 associations across UK sport, stated footballers and cricketers were three times more likely to become problem gamblers than other men in their age group. Eight years on, EPIC, a consultancy group specialising in problem gambling, said professional athletes were now four times more likely than others to develop issues.<\/p>\n \u201cThe modern footballer has no shortage of stress, pressure to perform, access to certain substances, and a culture that sometimes normalises risky behaviours, all of which might contribute to addiction and other mental health problems,\u201d say Sagal and DeWitt.<\/p>\n These numbers are startling \u2014 and beg the question of why.<\/p>\n There is an increasing belief that the increasing pervasiveness of addictive personalities is a contributing factor.<\/p>\n When Kobe Bryant, one of the most influential athletes in history, wrote an article for The Players\u2019 Tribune, he titled it \u201cObsession is natural\u201d.<\/p>\n For Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Bryant, and his legendary work ethic, maybe. Later on in that piece, he expanded on that intensity: \u201cI swore to approach every matchup as a matter of life and death.\u201d The mindset he coined as \u201cmamba mentality\u201d is not so different at all from an obsessive personality.<\/p>\n Three years after his untimely death, Bryant\u2019s legacy continues.<\/p>\n Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon<\/a>, then at Everton<\/a>, paid tribute to the 41-year-old when he died in a helicopter crash, posting on Twitter: \u201cRIP to the greatest competitor the sports world has seen. A true definition of hard work and dedication. A Kobe video or quote has gotten me through some tough times during my career. Thank you for inspiring me CHAMP.\u201d<\/p>\n Gordon, in turn, has displayed elements of that mentality. Speaking to the Newcastle matchday programme last month, he revealed: \u201cI get really obsessed with things. Whatever is on my mind for those couple of weeks, I\u2019ll buy all the gear, research every detail of it; it\u2019s just my personality.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s a good thing because I don\u2019t settle for just being average at something \u2014 I want to be the best at everything I do. It\u2019s a good mindset to have, but I think it stresses the people around me out.\u201d<\/p>\n While the latter part of that statement hints at some minor repercussions of an obsessive personality, this is not to pick out Gordon, or even to say he is at risk \u2014 but to highlight how widespread this attitude is within sport. The England Under-21 international is not an extreme example.<\/p>\n During the 2017 Women\u2019s European Championship, Sarina Wiegman, then coaching her native Netherlands\u2019 national team, found herself so consumed by the job that she left a planned family day halfway through the tournament, telling her loved ones: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I can\u2019t relax. I can\u2019t do this.\u201d<\/p>\n In other sports, legendary England rugby union international Jonny Wilkinson was famous for his obsessive preparation \u2014 something that he revealed post-retirement had left him with acute anxiety.<\/p>\n Wilkinson, who refused to leave training sessions until he had completed six consecutive successful kicks from the touchline, maintained a stratospheric success rate of 95.7 per cent during the final five years of his career at French club Toulon. He also taught himself how to kick drop goals with both feet \u2014 then unprecedented \u2014 in case of such an opportunity as that which arose for him in the last minute of England\u2019s 2003 World Cup final win.<\/p>\n \u201cI spent my career surviving the pressure I put on myself,\u201d Wilkinson recounted.<\/p>\n With football getting faster, more intense, and with more games in the schedule than ever, players are forced to wring themselves dry with increasingly less rest. To reach the top \u2014 and to stay there \u2014 players almost have to be addicted to the fitness, training, and development part of the process.<\/p>\n NFL<\/a> player Maxx Crosby is a recovering alcoholic. The Las Vegas Raiders defensive end has openly spoken about how he has an addictive personality, but sees the positives of it, in that it allowed him to refocus on his American football career once he went sober in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I\u2019m an addict,\u201d Crosby told ESPN this year. \u201cI went through what I went through, but this is way bigger than that. For me, it helps that I have that addictive personality, but I\u2019ve always loved football.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview this month, Nile Ranger, another footballer to reveal a gambling addiction, told The Athletic<\/em><\/a>: \u201cI\u2019m an addictive personality. I got addicted to it, that feeling of winning would be outrageous, that adrenaline was crazy.\u201d It was a major contribution to the unravelling of his career.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n GO DEEPER<\/p>\n Nile Ranger: ‘I\u2019m Haaland if I\u2019d eaten and behaved better. I didn\u2019t. I thought I knew it all\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n In research carried out in 2017 by the University of Bradford, several footballers who had spent time at the Sporting Chance clinic were anonymously interviewed.<\/p>\n One of those, given the pseudonym of \u2018Tony\u2019, had made more than 300 professional appearances and played in the Premier League<\/a>. He now suffered from depression and alcohol misuse \u2014 and outlined the connection with the obsession he developed during his playing career.<\/p>\n The report states: \u201cAfter being rejected as a player at 18, he had worked on a building site and then at 21 was signed to a team; he was determined that he would not be rejected a second time. He described himself as having been very focused on his game, training exceptionally hard. It meant everything to him: \u2018I lived and breathed it, I even ate it\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As his level of play gradually dropped with age, Tony described it as a \u201cslippery slope\u201d in terms of self-worth. He developed an alcohol dependency, and made attempts to take his own life.<\/p>\n Of course, players can have an obsessive personality \u2014 and be intensely driven \u2014 without it leading to addiction in other areas of their lives.<\/p>\n \u201cI was addicted, I know I was; I was addicted to football and addicted to scoring goals and addicted to trying to be the best,\u201d says former Newcastle and England striker Alan Shearer, now a colleague<\/a> at The Athletic<\/em>. \u201cThose things pushed me.<\/p>\n \u201cGoals were the biggest rush I\u2019ve ever experienced. You score one and you crave another. But all I can do here is talk about myself and that obsession never really filtered into other areas of my life. I liked going out and having a drink and a laugh with the lads, for example, but it never became more than that.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything else was in moderation. I loved winning and still do, but not to the point where it took over my life. My obsession, if that\u2019s what it was, was very channelled.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I do understand is how difficult it can be for footballers and other elite athletes to cope with losing that addiction, that focus. When you\u2019ve had those incredible adrenaline spikes, when you\u2019ve enjoyed adulation, you can see why people might look for compensation elsewhere. I was very lucky; I went from one dressing room to another with my television work. I know I\u2019ll never have that feeling of scoring again, but at least I\u2019ve got something else.\u201d<\/p>\n But when talking about psychology, it is more useful to think of risk factors rather than causal effect. This is a field which operates through predisposition rather than guarantees.<\/p>\n \u201cAddiction is a compelling urge to act or use a substance despite negative consequences,\u201d explain Sagal and DeWitt. \u201cIt\u2019s driven by the brain\u2019s reward system and operates on a continuum with varying degrees of severity.\u201d<\/p>\n This begins to explain why an addictive personality can lead to off-pitch difficulties \u2014 the brain\u2019s reward system has been conditioned throughout a career.<\/p>\n For a long time, sporting development was based on the \u201810,000 hours\u2019 theory \u2014 now considered to hold flimsy relevance as the original study was based specifically on violin students \u2014 which encouraged early specialisation and constant pushing.<\/p>\n With players being picked up by academies at earlier ages, and the dedication required to make it at an elite level ever higher, the brain is encouraged to become even more obsessive. When that obsession becomes focused on off-field issues, the risk of addiction grows ever greater \u2014 with other implicit parts of football accentuating that danger.<\/p>\n Footballers face extended periods of boredom and elevated levels of pressure. There is also the potential of isolation \u2014 with players, often on short-term contracts, competing with team-mates for places. This is the nature of the profession \u2014 hours of travelling for matches and sitting in hotels, before the burst of activity for 90 minutes in front of thousands of passionate people.<\/p>\n \u201cFootballers have a lot of time on their hands and are earning a lot of money,\u201d explains former Stoke City<\/a> and Crystal Palace<\/a> manager Tony Pulis, who has been involved in professional football for just under 50 years as a player and then coach. \u201cThe game is a real drug and a real high. Sometimes players need to fill it if they\u2019re not getting that high, and look for other things. Gambling is an avenue to get that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Frank\u2019, another player in the University of Bradford\u2019s research, spoke about the difficulties he had adapting to all the free time. He called the hours after training finished for the day \u201ca lonely place to be\u201d and described an \u201caimlessness\u201d that led to depression and gambling.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to rest as a footballer,\u201d says Charlie Daniels, who made more than 450 professional appearances, and played in the Premier League for Bournemouth<\/a>. He currently works as manager of Championship club Watford<\/a>\u2019s under-18s side. \u201cAnd so that means you\u2019re sitting down a lot, and need some sort of stimulus. It might start as a social thing \u2014 but it gets the better of some people, and they become addicted. Maybe it\u2019s a release.\u201d<\/p>\n A release from the pressure \u2014 with large sums of money, long stretches of down-time, and with the same obsessive personality that has driven their sporting success.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a professional athlete, you might well have thoughts about persevering and \u2018pushing through\u2019 \u2014 a determination to never stop seeking that victory, even though it\u2019s difficult,\u201d sports psychiatrist Dr Tim Rogers told The Athletic<\/em> in February 2021.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are great attributes if you\u2019re 1-0 down in the 87th minute of a football match, but not great if you\u2019ve already lost \u00a3500 and you\u2019ve only got \u00a3100 left.\u201d<\/p>\n Ex-Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson, who presented the documentary Football, Gambling and Me about his own addiction, spoke of a similar mentality.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe you were a sensation seeker, maybe you tried to do unusual things,\u201d an academic put to him, after testing revealed his betting tactics were far less conservative than an average gambler.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI tried to play football like that, yeah,\u201d Merson replied. \u201cMy teammates at Arsenal would always say, \u2018Stop hitting the glory ball, the killer ball.\u2019 But that\u2019s what made me the player I was. Other people would play safe football. But I didn\u2019t play like that, it was all or nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLooking back at it now, thinking about it, that\u2019s exactly the same as my gambling. That impulsivity which made me so effective on the pitch almost killed me off it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Research has implied that sportspeople are also more likely to display traits of psychopathy, with several of those characteristics \u2014 such as a desperation to win, being committed, and a lack of empathy \u2014 suggestive of a negative link with problem gambling.<\/p>\n Jeremy Snape is a sports psychologist and former international cricketer who has worked with clients including Crystal Palace, the England rugby union team, and the South African cricket side. The Athletic<\/em> asked him about the difficulties of his job \u2014 whether he felt the need to find a balance between creating an elite performance mindset versus a healthy mindset for everyday life.<\/p>\n \u201cThe path to mastery is steep, alluring and slippery,\u201d Snape said. \u201cFor elite performers, the same obsessive drive for continual improvement and gratification can spill over. What does success and failure really mean? It needs a more broad and balanced appraisal across our sport, mental health, relationships and life.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile medals and records are great achievements, winning at all costs may be too high a price to pay for some.\u201d<\/p>\n His answer gets to the heart of the dual-purpose role psychologists play. On one hand, they were hired to produce the winning machines of elite-level competition. On the other, they are often the employee responsible for looking after players\u2019 mental health \u2014 even if that intervention comes with a sporting cost.<\/p>\n The older members of football\u2019s current generation of players did not necessarily have that support. In 2011, England\u2019s Football Association produced a 117-page document on academy restructuring as part of its Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP). Just half a page \u2014 and seven bullet points \u2014 was devoted to player welfare.<\/p>\n Within that half-page, there was little guidance or structure on how<\/em> that welfare should be administered \u2014 just that clubs should<\/em> do something<\/em>. As a comparison, the sections frameworking performance analysis \u2014 how many games should be filmed, how many analysts should be employed et cetera \u2014 were extensively detailed over several pages.<\/p>\n As of two years ago, one Premier League club had just one player care officer across the entirety of the academy age groups on the boys\u2019 side. That is not thought to be atypical, with clubs employing more analysts than player-care staff. The responsibility of that job is to create close relationships with players \u2014 but the workload is spread far too thinly.<\/p>\n \u201cClubs can educate players from a young age about addiction risks and promote a culture of openness,\u201d say DeWitt and Sagal. \u201c(This can mean) Encouraging early help-seeking and providing psychological support can act as a strong defence against addiction. Normalising talk in and around mental health and wellness is important, while finding ways for pros who have experienced and overcome addiction to connect with and relay their experiences to academy players is another smart approach.\u201d When physical testing is already done on under-nines players, following up with the mental side seems a no-brainer to implement.<\/p>\n Strides are being made at the older ages.<\/p>\n Completing a wellness assessment on a tablet device each morning is now typical practice, as well as the rise of wearable trackers such as sleep bands. However, these do not pick up every issue \u2014 while players do not always have the incentive to self-report when they want to start games every week.<\/p>\n To Pulis, it\u2019s about seeking distraction over obsession. \u201cYoungsters coming into the game who haven\u2019t been indoctrinated fully need to find another avenue, perhaps a dual-career, which they can enjoy as well as their football,\u201d he says. \u201cThere should be a real force of direction that pushes clubs to guide players into something that can take the strain away, to address the free time.\u201d<\/p>\n Finding solutions is difficult. Football\u2019s encouragement of addictive personalities is not done out of vindictiveness or apathy. But it is a by-product of the pursuit of elite performance \u2014 and an industry that is only just starting to recognise the strength of the mind as well as the body. As mentality is weaponised from ever-younger ages, those traits can spill out in unforeseen and extreme directions.<\/p>\n Football\u2019s relationship with addiction is extensive \u2014 the money, the escapism, the rampant gambling advertising. Dozens of tales lie in its wake \u2014 and not all will end as happily as Toney and Tonali, who are anticipated to return to playing next year after serving their bans.<\/p>\n But before all those risk factors comes the brain. And without further player care, existing pathways are predisposing athletes to vulnerability too.<\/p>\n (Top image: Sam Richardson for The Athletic, images: Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n Harry Toffolo was given a suspended five-month ban in September (Eddie Keogh\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/cdn.theathletic.com\/app\/uploads\/2023\/11\/09095437\/GettyImages-521028444.jpg\")
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\n Kobe Bryant playing for the LA Lakers in 2016 (Harry How\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/cdn.theathletic.com\/app\/uploads\/2023\/11\/09094253\/GettyImages-166165200-scaled.jpg\")
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\n Wilkinson after his drop goal won the 2003 Rugby World Cup (Tom Jenkins\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"go-deeper\"\/](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.theathletic.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/width=128,height=128,fit=cover,format=auto\/app\/uploads\/2023\/11\/07110259\/1108_NileRanger_2-1024x512.jpg\")
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\n Pulis, left, has managed more than 300 Premier League games (David Rogers\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n