Queens Park Rangers midfielder Joey Barton has revealed that his career in football saved him from a potential life of crime.
The 32-year-old grew up in a neighbourhood in Merseyside, where he witnessed a world immersed in criminal activity which had taken members of his own family.
Barton has admitted that his life could have gone down the same path if not for his footballing ability and his love of the game.
He told The Mirror: "I had three career choices: manual labour, drugs or sport. I saw my mates drinking and experimenting with drugs. I thought, 'If I do that, I'm not going to be able to be what I want to be in life'.
"The easy thing would have been to have conformed and do what my mates were doing. I was really talented at football and my mind was opened up by it. When I was 23 or 24, my younger brother was involved in a murder of a black kid. It was my cousin who killed him. My brother was with them and there was a gang of lads. And they're now serving life in jail for murder – and rightly so.
"All they did was go to school, smoke pot, rob cars. Before they knew it, they were in a spiral that was way out of control. They got into a situation where somebody died for no other reason than they didn't understand their background. Because they'd never experienced it. The only difference with me was I was immersed in a world of football."
Barton, who has been capped once by England, served a 77-day prison sentence on an assault charge in 2008.
