Dele Alli was back at Tottenham on Sunday (Image: Getty)
Dele Alli has made it clear he has no plans to retire from football at the age of 29, despite going almost an entire year without playing competitively. The former England international, who earned 37 caps for the Three Lions between 2015 and 2019, has not taken to the pitch since playing the final few minutes for Como at AC Milan on March 15 last year. Alli was released by the Serie A club in September after making only one appearance for them. He has only played 29 games for Everton, Besiktas and Como respectively since leaving Tottenham in January 2022.
Alli enjoyed an emotional return to Spurs on Sunday as a guest of honour for their north London derby against Arsenal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The attacking midfielder was brought out onto the pitch at half-time and said to the crowd: “I can’t wait to get back on the pitch playing, hopefully it won’t be too long now.” It comes after a return to Milton Keynes Dons, in League Two, was ruled out by Paul Warne who said there is “absolutely no truth” to the rumours.
The Englishman spent seven seasons at Tottenham and made 269 appearances, scoring 67 goals and producing 59 assists. He was expected to be one of the best Premier League players of his generation before he sadly faded out of the picture. Alli added to the Spurs fans: “I hope you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you. A lot has happened in our journeys since we were last together but I’m back today and I hope you know that you’ll always be my family.”
In 2023, Alli revealed to Gary Neville on The Overlap that he was sexually abused as a child before he was adopted at the age of 12. He said he was “molested” aged six, started smoking at seven and was dealing drugs at eight, adding that he was exploited by gangs. Such trauma has had a long-lasting impact on the footballer, who is now looking out for his next club.
Alli added: “I was adopted by an amazing family, I couldn’t have asked for better people to do what they’d done for me. If God created people, it was them,” he said of how he got through those dark times.
“They were amazing, and they’ve helped me a lot, and that was another thing, you know – when I started living with them, it was hard for me to really open up to them, because I felt within myself, it was easy to get rid of me again.
“I tried to be the best kid I could be for them. I stayed with them from 12, and then started playing first-team, professionally, at 16. It all sort of took off from there.
Dele Alli addressed the Spurs fans at half-time (Image: Getty)
Dele Alli only made one first-team appearance for Como (Image: Getty)
“Don’t get me wrong, I love football, it saved my life, I owe everything to football – but it’s not just as easy as everyone thinks it is. It’s not this high life. Yes, you have money, you can do a lot of things that you wouldn’t be able to do without it, but mentally, I don’t think people will ever understand until you’re in it, what it can do to you.
“Rejection, just being told you’re not good enough, fighting every day. Even something like losing a game, it can affect you mentally, and you have to be ready, you have to be smiling the next day. When you’re not, it’s a problem.”
Alli even contemplated retiring at the age of 24, when he was one of the biggest names in the Premier League. He added: “It’s hard to pinpoint one exact moment [when I started to feel that things weren’t right]. Probably the saddest moment for me, was when [Jose] Mourinho was manager, I think I was 24.
“I remember there was one session, like one morning I woke up and I had to go to training – this is when he’d stopped playing me – and I was in a bad place. I remember just looking in the mirror – I mean it sounds dramatic but I was literally staring in the mirror – and I was asking if I could retire now, at 24, doing the thing I love.
“For me, that was heartbreaking to even have had that thought at 24, to want to retire. That hurt me a lot, that was another thing that I had to carry.”