A former international team-mate of Manuel Neuer, Mesut Ozil and Mats Hummels has admitted he used to play in the Bundesliga while under the residual effects of drugs.
Chinedu Ede was a member of Germany’s victorious 2009 Under-21 European Championship squad, and played in the German top flight for Mainz and Hertha Berlin among other clubs.
Now 33, he retired from the game last year and is now pursuing a career in music.
A recently released music video called ‘ Reflection ’ includes the lines ‘I hated football’, and ‘In front of 60,000 in the Bundesliga, sometimes wasted’.
Speaking with T-Online , Edu explained that his hate was directed towards the football industry, which he sees as sapping the individuality from the people in it.
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"I started because it was fun,” he said.
"In this industry, and football really is an industry, they simply want adaptable robots, who keep telling the same sh*t over and over again. Everything around it, with all these officials – it disgusted me.
"99 per cent of the players who spoke openly and honestly were replaced very quickly. Everything made me feel so disgusted.
“It had nothing to do with the original sport anymore. Anybody with rough edges was chiselled down until they fit into this world.
“Sure, you got a lot of money for it, but in the end no money in the world justifies not being able to be yourself."
Asked to explain whether the aforementioned line really was about drugs, Ede confirmed: "It’s basically the way it’s understood.
"Sometimes you lose touch with reality so much and want to make it right, so it was like medicine. Then you play and you still have a residual effect from the drugs.
“But on the other hand, I also mean the fact that I was playing on painkillers all the time.
“When you had an injury, you were encouraged to start [training] again earlier than was really good for your body.”
Starting at Hertha, Berlin-born Edu also represented Duisberg, Union Berlin, Mainz and Kaiserslautern before heading overseas.
He went on to play for Cypriot side Anorthosis Famagusta, FC Twente and Bangkok United, before returning to Berlin with minnows VSG Altglienicke.
Edu represented Germany at every youth level from U-17 to U-21, but never made the step up to the senior side.