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In a week that has seen shock results in the Premier League, fresh allegations of corruption inside FIFA and an ongoing controversy over alleged racism, it is entirely possible that a certain piece of news coming out of Portman Road will be somewhat overlooked.
But the news that Ipswich striker Michael Chopra has been suffering from a relapse of a gambling addiction is a story that carries with it a dangerously underestimated problem in football.
Chopra, 28, joined Ipswich from Cardiff for just over £1 million during the summer. With a solid start of 5 goals in 13 games, Ipswich fans could be forgiven for thinking all was well with their frontman.
Yet manager Paul Jewell announced on Thursday that Chopra had been in rehabilitation at the Sporting Chance clinic for three weeks. Absent from every training session, Chopra left the clinic just three times, to play on match days for his side; fans unaware of his turmoil off the field.
Gambling addiction in football is not new issue or an entirely uncommon one, but it rarely hits the headlines. The dangers of drink and drug addiction have received wide attention through the highly publicised cases of the likes Paul Gascoigne, Tony Adams and Paul Merson.
Gambling addiction is not without its high profile victims however. Stoke City winger Matthew Etherington suffered heavily during his time at West Ham and in the early days of his Stoke career. He estimated that he lost over £1.5 million before he conquered the illness.
The danger of a gambling addiction is the ease with which it can start. Etherington pointed to the casual gambling within the West Ham squad as one of the catalysts of his gambling; and in an age of wi-fi and smartphones, large sums of money can be gambled and lost at the push of a button.
Another key contributor is the boredom factor of the modern-day footballer. Former Leeds United and Blackburn defender Dominic Matteo, another victim who gambled away over £1 million on horses, used to bet while being driven to and from training each day. The long hours of travelling to and from games together with the hotel stays can only make the ease of betting seem all the more tempting.
In Chopra’s case, the man should be commended for coming clean and seeking help for his problem. It takes a great deal of courage to admit such a crippling addiction to your teammates, but also the fans, who must have been completely unaware of the problems Chopra was trying to deal with.
The wisdom of playing Chopra in matches, however, is something that could be called into question. It cannot be helpful to the recovery process if the striker leaves his rehabilitation once a week to play alongside teammates he has been unable to train with for some time. Surely it would have been better to let the treatment run its course; for Chopra to return to training and to matches when he was fully confident that the worst of his problems were behind him rather than gambling with his long-term well-being.
The decision to continue playing him seems even more risky given his relapse following rehabilitation while at Sunderland in 2008. As much as Ipswich fans, myself included, want Chopra to play every game, nobody wants to see him continue to struggle with a very dangerous off-field illness due to incomplete treatment and being rushed out every weekend to play in games.
While is likely that the Chopra story will be quickly forgotten as the Terry/Ferdinand racism row drags on, the addiction itself remains a serious problem in the world of football. The case of Michael Chopra shows that it’s one that should receive a great deal more attention before more players are dragged into the turmoil and pain that Chopra is so bravely confronting.
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