Despite all that, he was a professional footballer just four years later, making his league debut at the age of 16 for MK Dons in 2012. He was an England international by 2015, he won the PFA Young Player of the Year award two years running in 2016 and 2017.
Dele Alli: revealed a harrowing tale of his early life in an interview with Gary Neville. He was abused at the age of six and was dealing drugs by the time he was just eight years old. Photograph: The Overlap/PA Wire. By the time the weekend is over, countless millions of people will have watched at least some of it. Neville’s initial two-minute clip, tweeted out on Thursday morning, had 48 million views as of Friday afternoon. Alli’s stated wish is to help one person by telling his story. Without ever knowing the true extent of it, he’ll have done far more than that.
And look, as ever, it doesn’t do to be getting too puritanical about this stuff. You like a bet, I like a bet, SkyBet likes us to like having a bet. They’re owned by Flutter, who also own Paddy Power, who have grown from a small office in Clonskeagh to become the biggest betting company in the world.
The interview with Dele Alli was skilfully handled by broadcaster Gary Neville. Photograph: The Overlap/PA Wire But, of course, the truth is we’ve all become entirely desensitised to this stuff by now. English football’s entanglement with gambling companies is so total, so intrinsic to the daily running of the game that it’s barely even worth pointing out the ironies any more.