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A former Premier League player, who writes anonymously about the inside world of the game under the pseudonym The Secret Footballer, tells me that young soccer players—some of whom are on £5,000 [$7,800] a week—can quickly become accustomed to a way of living, before being dropped from a great height."A lot of the players that wind up dealing drugs see it as the quickest and easiest way to earn the levels of money that maintained a lifestyle that they briefly enjoyed as a footballer and are desperate to maintain," he said. "It's possible to make the case that these players, who have generally lost the money earned from playing football, are easy targets for those higher up the drug dealing chain when looking for distributors that have influence over the younger people in large communities."The route from being a one-off, to a cast off, to jail for drug dealing is now well trodden. Joel Kitamirike made an appearance for Chelsea at 17 in a European match alongside Frank Lampard and John Terry, before being released. He ended up playing at Chelmsford City and, in 2008, was sentenced to 20 months for selling cocaine and heroin on the streets of Ipswich.In 2013, former Newcastle academy player Andrew Ferrell was one of a gang of drug dealers jailed for a total of 44 years after police seized £1.5 million [$2.3 million] worth of cocaine and amphetamine. Ferrell had joined Newcastle in 2002, was released two years later and tumbled down the leagues before ending up being paid £250 [$380] a week at Bedlington Terriers.Former Leicester City under-18s player Ellis Myles-Tebbutt, 21, was jailed last year after being caught with 30 wraps of crack and heroin. His defense barrister said he has lost direction after his "full professional hopes" with LCFC were dashed and he was released from the academy without a contract.For people across the board locked out of the mainstream economy, due to a poor education and a lack of opportunities, the drug trade offers an attractive way out. It takes no leap of the imagination to realize that a young player who has been handed the golden ticket of a top club scholarship or a professional contract, a taste of the big time for doing something they love—only for it to be swiped away at the last minute—might be tempted by the offer of a lucrative but illegal new job.With so many young ex-players in jail for drugs, it seems that if someone doesn't start looking out for these kids properly, many more of them will end up locked up and forgotten, the modern day cannon fodder of today's soccer franchises.Follow Max on Twitter.Read on VICE Sports: A Drug Kingpin and His Racket, the Untold Story of Freeway Rick Ross