Image Credit: Quinn Rooney / Getty Images
At this point you’d have to wager that Raheem Sterling has the most timid drug problem in the history of football as a professional sport, with the Manchester City player’s £125,000 Mercedes C63 AMG having been found abandoned after being involved in a car crash, with canisters filled with the legal high found inside of it.
Pictures of the vehicle were obtained by The Sun, with Sterling’s manager claiming that the England international wasn’t in the car at the time of the incident. It had allegedly been driving at speeds of up to 155mph before the crash, with it being left abandoned in London for days following the crash. It is reported that Sterling borrowed the vehicle to a friend, who then seemingly had a big ol’ huffing party all by himself before slamming it into a wall in the capital.
I’ve previously noted how Sterling’s behaviour is 1) not that out of the ordinary for a 20-year-old, and 2) especially not that out of the ordinary for a 20-year-old multimillionaire professional footballer, but this being the third time that he has been linked with laughing gas is enough to make me retract my earlier comments and now state that, actually, this is pretty odd behaviour considering that no one actually gives that much of a shit about laughing gas, and would certainly not let it come between them and their incredibly lucrative career three times.
Raheem Sterling, not smiling. He had presumably not inhaled any laughing gas at this point. (Image Credit: Bradley Kanaris / Getty Images)
Sterling wasn’t involved this time around, but the fact remains that he still had laughing gas canisters tucked away in his car. Either they’re his from a previous incredibly tame evening of mild debauchery, or he has got friends who are just as obsessed with inhaling nitrous oxide as he is. The latter possibility is reminiscent of that classic celebrity pitfall where they surround themselves with friends who leach off them for drug money whilst simultaneously fueling the celebrity’s own habit, except in this instance that drug isn’t heroin, it’s a legal high you can purchase behind the bar in Malia alongside a fish bowl filled with Sex on the Beach.
I’m not saying that Sterling should move onto harder drugs, but that he’s gone from being a 20-year-old whose youthful experimentation unfortunately takes place in the spotlight due to his career, to a young man that is growing increasingly difficult to defend due to his youthful experimentation being so sub-par. After the second time he made headlines after being caught inhaling laughing gas he probably should’ve packed it in, but instead it seems as though he’s been storing it in his sports car like a squirrel preparing for hibernation, except instead of nuts he’s gathering shit drugs.
