Former Liverpool and Bayern Munich midfielder Dietmar Hamann has admitted that he turned to alcohol and betting as a means to distract him from depression.
The 2005 Champions League winner had taken up gambling as a means to cope with problems in his personal life, and lost a whopping €345,900 bet on a cricket match between Australia and South Africa.
“I was spread betting because it requires more thought, and the more my brain was engaged the less I thought about the devastation I was feeling inside,” Hamann wrote in his forthcoming autobiography: ‘The Didi Man: My Love Affair with Liverpool’.
“That night I bought Australia for €3,365 at 340 runs. That meant for every run over 340 you win €3,365, but for every run under you lose the same amount.
“Australia collapsed for 237. It is a score I remember well. It cost me €345,900. Every wicket felt like a stab in the heart. By the end of the night I felt like I’d been scalped.
“The next day, when I looked at the mess that was me in the mirror, I said ‘Didi, things have got to change’.”
Hamann left Liverpool, the club he said he had a “magnificent love affair” with, in July 2006, having made 253 appearances in the seven years he spent at Anfield.
The gambling problems began after his marriage fell apart and he left Anfield to play for Manchester City. He later took a year off from football and struggling with alcoholism.
“I was sitting in an empty house, and so you numb the pain. You have a couple [of drinks], you may as well have another couple, and yet nothing has changed.
“I was disturbed. But that moment, I realised I had to face up to these things, just as other people have big things in their life they have to face up to.”
Hamann, now 38, also believes that during his time at Liverpool he became “as much a Scouser as Jamie Carragher or Stevie Gerrard.”
Hamann ended his professional career last year after a season at Milton Keynes Dons. He later managed Stockport County for four months.