Mental illness in football: The unmentioned taboo

Breno made a big money move to Bayern Munich early in his career

A 2009 study, commissioned by the Institute of Psychiatry, revealed that people were more reluctant to reveal that they have a mental illness than admit to being gay. Of the 2,000 people surveyed 30% felt that they would find it difficult to publicly admit suffering from a mental illness, compared to 20% who felt they would find it difficult coming out as gay. Whilst neither area has been adequately tackled by governing bodies it’s fair to say that homophobia in football has benefited from far greater media attention and coverage, leaving mental illness trailing in it’s wake as one of the last, unaddressed, sporting taboos.

The recent events surrounding Bayern Munich’s Brazilian centre back, Breno, are what brought this area of the game and what might go on behind closed doors, to mind. The 21 year old Sao Paulo graduate was arrested by German police after a fire at his home, which caused in excess of one million Euros worth of damage. The arrest came within days of rumours emerging that Breno had been receiving psychiatric support, based on the advice of his club, at the prestigious Max-Planck-Institute of Psychiatry.

Breno arrived at the Allianz Arena under a haze of publicity in December 2007. Hailed as one of the brightest Brazilian prospects in his position and aged just 17, his future seemed bright and Bayern Munich fans were quick to point out the fact that he had chosen them ahead of Real Madrid and Juventus. What followed can be considered nothing short of a spectacular failure. Four seasons later he has completed just 21 games for his parent club and a further 7 during a disastrous loan spell with lowly Nuremberg, at no point showing anything like the potential that persuaded Bayern Munich to part with €12 million.

Speculation as to the cause of his supposed mental distress has been rife, with the main theory focusing on that loan spell with Nuremberg which resulted in him being sidelined for some time with a very serious knee injury (though the cynic in me does look at the fact that a 21 year old man has five children by two different women and wonder about his mental stability/maturity pre-2010-injury). The cruciate-ligament injury couldn’t have come at a worse time for a player trying to make his mark in Germany and desperate for game time in the build up to the World Cup in South Africa. We can only imagine how distressing it must be to wait for three years to get your chance, only to have it snatched away by the cruelest twist of fate, but could an injury that so many footballers suffer really cause the level of distress that leads to psychiatric involvement?

Breno's home after fire caused more than €1M worth of damage

We don’t have to look far to see that it can. Another former Bayern Munich player, Sebastian Deisler, had similar problems with injury, which lead to depression, which eventually lead to Deisler retiring from football at the age of 27. A national team regular, with 36 caps to his name, not to mention two German doubles and a treble to his name, in January 2007, just twelve months before Breno arrived, he hung up his boots and waved goodbye to the game.

Deisler’s injury hell began at Hertha Berlin, a ruptured cruciate ligament and a torn synovial membrane limited him to just 70 appearances during three years with the club. The injuries and lack of game time didn’t put off Bayern, and despite spending most of his final season with Berlin on the treatment table, Germany’s premier club still felt the need to pay a signing on fee of almost €10 million to bring “Supertalent” to the club. However, the new start didn’t see Deisler enjoy better luck and over the following five seasons he managed just 86 appearances for the club. By the age of 25 he had suffered some 15 injuries and undergone 5 career saving operations.

The injuries obviously had serious ramifications, not only for Deisler, but also those around him and perhaps this contributed further to his delicate mental state. Franz Bechenbauer described Deisler as “an extremely introverted person” in his autobiography, yet despite this the Munich club pushed on in a bid to make him the focal point of their side when Michael Ballack moved to Chelsea. The pressure to become Germany’s next icon wasn’t limited to club level either, former Germany manager Rudi Voller once commented, “Deisler is so important for our future,” the expectation of a nation didn’t pass Deisler by, “The need for German talent was so strong that all eyes were on me.”

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of such expectation being placed on such fragile shoulders is the fact that it came years after his initial stint in the Max-Planck-Institute. Deisler spent the Christmas of 2003 receiving treatment for depression and the attitude of his superiors seemed far more understanding at the time. Voller, in stark contrast to his future comments, stated ‘You have to learn the lesson from what has happened to Sebastian. At the moment I am trying to find out who would be interested in help but the truth is that the pressure on the players are just getting bigger and bigger. It is getting out of hand.’ Uli Hoeness, Bayern Munich Managing Director said, ‘It is important to talk about the person Sebastian Deisler rather than the footballer Sebastian Deisler at this moment. He is ill and it is our duty as a club to make sure that he gets better.’ Four years later Deisler announced his retirement from the game, describing his final days in club football as “torture”, a culmination of injury and expectation leaving a 27 year old man feeling “empty,” “old” and “tired”.

Sebastian Deisler found the stresses of the professional game too much

The cause and effect of mental illness isn’t limited to first team regulars in Europe’s top leagues though, and no story highlights that better than that of Sonny Pike. Sonny was first brought to my attention back in the early nineties when he was showcased on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast. The nephew of former Tottenham striker Mark Falco and aged just 7 years old he had been invited to join the prestigious Ajax Academy of Excellence. He showed off his skills and it was obvious that he had some talent, however, the British media bandwagon went into overdrive and before long comparisons were being made between Sonny and some of the greatest names to graced the game.

If you’re of a certain age you might be wondering who Sonny Pike is and why, if he was so good, you haven’t heard of him. The simple answer is that in 2000, aged 16 and still a member of the Ajax youth setup, he suffered a nervous breakdown. At the age where most of us began to enjoy a level of independence we were yet to experience, Sonny was receiving the kind of treatment that far too many people associate with “loonies” and “mentalists”. No prizes for guessing what the cause might have been, his personal website biography states, “The pressure placed on him by his club, agents, sponsors and, to a lesser extent, the media made him suffer a nervous breakdown in October 2000, whilst still part of the Ajax youth squad.”

Injuries also played their part, “I couldn’t take it, and I got ill, really screwed up. I stopped going to training and stuff, because I was so screwed up I couldn’t hack it. Looking back, it’s amazing how low I was. Ajax completely forgot about me, they didn’t want to know, but as soon as I was better, they acted like they’d always been there for me. I realised how superficial it is at that level, and if I hadn’t got back to form I bet they would have turfed me out.” In 2003, aged 19, Sony retired from football to pursue a career in Sports Psychology, he still has the quality to play at a lower professional level and has received offers, but he no longer loves the game that once promised him so much.

Further instances of players who just can’t handle the pressure and expectation of professional football include Jan Simak, a 25 year old Czech international who, in the middle of a season with Hannover in the Bundesliga, disappeared for a number of days before releasing a statement saying that he wanted “to leave the murky world of football and set up a pub in South Bohmen“. Simak went on to a forge a relatively successful career and even returned to Germany with VFB Stuttgart in 2008.

More recently we have had the bizarre case of former West Ham player Savio disappearing whilst on loan at Juve Stabia in the Italian Serie B. Concerns regarding the players state of mind were so serious that Interpol were advised of his disappearance, he was later found, safe and well, but a quick Google search of the story and a glance through some of the reader’s comments gives a very telling insight into the ordinary fans view, or lack of understanding, of mental illness in football; “He disappeared on the pitch too, from what I remember,” “Nutter” and “Over-paid yob” were some of the highlights.

Savio Nsereko recently went missing from his club Juve Stabia

It’s not football specific either and perhaps an example that best highlights the plight of the modern sports star suffering from mental health problems is that of former England batsman Marcus Trescothick. Everybody remembers the aftermath of his admitting that he had been suffering from clinical depression, the outpouring of support from fans and fellow professionals showed how understanding the sporting world can be. However, the fact that he initially blamed absences and form on a mystery virus shows how difficult it can be to admit there is a problem to a wider audience. Embarrassment and fear, perhaps, forcing a sports star, otherwise adored by his fans, to hide his illness and instead try to fight it alone.

However, the stories we’ve touched on pale in significance when compared to the tragic tale of former German international goalkeeper Robert Enke. The 32 year old Hannover stopper took his own life in November 2009, much to the shock of football fans across the world who perhaps felt that a rich man doing an enjoyable job could never be so unhappy as to end it all. Enke had lost his young daughter, Lara, three years earlier and whilst this tragic event was cited as explanation for his actions his widow also revealed that he had been receiving psychiatric treatment for depression for almost six years prior to his death. The diagnosis of his depression coincided with a series of unsuccessful transfers around several different countries, his doctor, Valentin Markser, described his depression as a “fear of failure”.

So, what about Breno and how does football address the problem of mental illness in the game and how it’s perceived by fans? Well, as far as Breno is concerned he is in the best possible place to help him deal with his situation. As far as his club is concerned, you’d like to think that they might have learnt their lesson as a result of the Deisler affair and as such they might offer him the support and afford him the opportunities that he needs, though I don’t think any of us would be at all surprised if neither happened.

Addressing the attitude of the ordinary fan is a far more complex issue and not just in terms of football. The survey mentioned in the opening paragraph also produced results that showed a third of people interviewed didn’t feel someone with a mental illness could do a responsible job and a separate study found that fewer than four in ten employers would feel comfortable employing someone who has previously suffered from a mental health problem. The stigma of mental illness and everything that goes with it is a national problem and a far greater problem than the stigma attached to homosexuality, simply because mental illness is never discussed, especially in sporting terms. It remains one of the last great taboos of the modern game and whilst other areas of the ugly side of football hog the limelight, mental illness in the game will long remain the forgotten taboo of football worldwide.