Former Tottenham star, Dele Alli has revealed he sent to Africa to learn discipline after the footballer was sexually abused when he was six years old.
He made the shocking revelation on Gary Neville’s YouTube channel The Overlap.
“At six I was molested,” he said.
Alli, who returned to Everton in April, opened up about his difficult childhood and how it pushed him to attend a rehab facility in the US.
“I was sent to Africa to learn discipline and then I was sent back.
“At seven I started smoking and then at eight I started selling drugs.
“An older person told me they wouldn’t stop a kid on a bike so I’d ride around with my football and underneath I’d have drugs.
“At 11 I was hung off a bridge by a guy from the next estate. A man.
“By 12 I was adopted but from then it was like I was adopted by an amazing family.”
Alli said he entered a rehab facility for six weeks in recent months for an addiction to sleeping tablets and excessive drinking.
“It’s been going on for a long time without me realising it, I was doing [it] to numb the feelings I had – I didn’t realise I was doing it for that purpose,” he said.
“It’s probably a problem not only I have, I think it’s going around more than people realise in football.
“I’ve definitely abused them too much. It got really bad at some points and I didn’t understand how bad it was but I was never dealing with the root of the problem – when I was growing up the traumas I had, the feelings I had and I tried to deal with it all by myself,” he said.
“I lost myself for a few years.”