‘If God created people it was them’: Former England footballer Dele Alli pays tribute to ‘adoptive parents’ as he opens up about mental illness

Scoring a goal in the World Cup finals for your country is as good as it gets for any footballer and at the Russia World Cup in 2018, England midfielder, Dele Allie was regarded as one of the most talented players in the world valued by Spurs at £150m. But his form for Tottenham Hotspur fell off the proverbial cliff, documented in the Netflix season long behind the scenes drama looking at Spurs and in 2022 he was sold to Everton (my team!) in a deal that could rise to £40m.

But he played just 13 times and with claims of poor fitness was eventually loaned out to Besiktas in Turkey in summer 2022. He scored just three times in 15 games for the Turkish club who said they didn’t want to exercise the option to buy and so today and he is back at Everton for the pre-season trying to resuscitate his career.

But last week news broke that Alli had spent six weeks at a rehab centre and with the press sounding out some of his colleagues he felt it right to give the full story of what happened to Gary Neville on The Overlap (a football podcast) where he revealed how recent addiction to painkillers and sleeping pills was connected to his youth. He told Neville

So, at six, I was molested by my mum’s friend, who was at the house a lot. My mum was an alcoholic, and that happened at six. I was sent to Africa to learn discipline, and then I was sent back. At seven, I started smoking, eight I started dealing drugs.