Poker Affects Performance of Premier League Football Players
A recent study has suggested that some Premier League football players are underperforming on the pitch due to worries caused by gambling, usually in poker games. The study was conducted by a Ph.D student at the University of Chester, who interviewed over thirty professional football players to find out the extent to which extracurricular gambling has negatively affected their performance on the pitch.
Players had revealed to Graeme Law, the student who conducted the survey into how gambling impacted athletic performance, that they had noticeably underperformed and played poorly because of stress caused by pre-game poker. Law found that players would typically gamble on the bus to matches, or in hotel rooms before away games. Losses they incurred as a result of these games reportedly cause them to perform badly during their football games.
As well as these pre-match poker games, the study found that top footballers are also using online betting sites and then concealing this additional gambling from their partners and team mates.
Law commented that “football players gamble as a way of relieving the boredom on journeys to away games and after training on pre-season tours. Contrary to popular opinion, their actions are heavily regulated and constrained, so they get easily bored.”
Several players admitted the extent of their gambling, with one international and Premier League player telling Law that: “I liked to bet on the bus, but it got worse when I could bet online. It’s the culture to gamble in football and it can get dangerous when it grips you.”
Another Premier League player revealed that he had lost a significant amount of money before a big game and played poorly as a result, “I have lost a lot and I had a stinker because it’s all I thought about during the game”. One player disclosed that a fellow player had lost over two thousand pounds as a result of a poker game on the way to a match. A manager admitted to Law that he had tried to ban card playing amongst his players but found it very hard to control.
Many high profile professional football players make no secret of their poker playing. Some, like Barcelona FC’s Neymar, are associated with online poker sites such as PokerStars. Neymar is one of the sports biggest names and he is a member of Team PokerStars, along with Cristiano Ronaldo. These players take part in online tournaments and games against other PokerStars customers.
