Raheem Sterling is without a club and awaiting sentencing, and faces the real prospect of a prison term when the court reconvenes next month. The former England winger, who will turn 32 in December, pleaded guilty at Basingstoke magistrates court to dangerous driving and possession of nitrous oxide, after an incident in which witnesses feared someone might be killed.
The distance between Sterling’s position and that of Harry Kane is stark. Kane, 16 months his senior, is still breaking records as England’s captain and hit a personal high of 73 goals last season. Sterling, by contrast, is not merely without a team. In another version of events he would have been part of the current England squad, playing for the manager, Thomas Tuchel, who made him the No 1 target of the new Chelsea era after the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital takeover.
Sources who asked not to be named to protect relationships paint a complicated picture of Sterling. One describes him as a “lost soul”; another believes he has been “hopelessly misguided” in his life and career. To understand the fall, it helps to recall the scale of the rise.
Sterling grew up helping his mother on cleaning jobs in Stonebridge before emerging as an outrageously gifted footballer in Queens Park Rangers’ academy and reaching Liverpool’s first team at 17. Mark Anderson, the Liverpool youth scout who convinced the club to make him one of the most expensive 15-year-olds, recalls a player who seemed perfectly calibrated for success. “Raheem was confident,” he says. “He played with passion and desire. From the first time I saw him, I thought he had the ingredients to become an international prospect.”
He was quickly training with the senior side at Liverpool, where players were struck by the natural strength of a slight teenager who was rarely seen in the gym yet held his own against Martin Skrtel, Mamadou Sakho and Kolo Touré, all of whom towered over him. Steven Gerrard, in his book My Story, wrote that Sterling was “much tougher mentally than some people might have imagined”, admitting that he and Jamie Carragher did not go easy on him in training.
That resilience was tested when he rejected a £100,000-a-week contract and found himself engulfed in a public storm. It marked a turning point in how he was seen: from England’s brightest prospect to arrogant young footballer, fairly or otherwise. Sterling gave a BBC interview insisting he was not a “money-grabbing 20-year-old”, and Liverpool-supporting pundits turned on him. Matters worsened when his then-agent, Aidy Ward, told the Evening Standard that Sterling would not sign a new deal even if the club offered close to £1m per week. Liverpool sold him to Manchester City for an initial £44m that summer.
Public sentiment had already begun to shift — from England’s fifth-youngest debutant to the player who told Roy Hodgson he was too tired for a game against Estonia — and the first images of Sterling inhaling from a balloon allegedly filled with nitrous oxide emerged in 2015. Leaving Liverpool darkened the mood, and the reputation has haunted him since, particularly with England, where he became the scapegoat for the Euro 2016 last-16 exit to Iceland. The abuse was toxic enough that Sterling branded himself #TheHatedOne on Instagram. He was 21. Within two years he was the victim of a racially motivated attack outside Manchester City’s training ground and was racially abused by Chelsea supporters during a match at Stamford Bridge.
At his peak, he was spectacular. In 2019 he won a domestic treble with City, scored twice in the FA Cup final, converted the winning penalty in the League Cup final shootout and was named the Football Writers’ Association’s footballer of the year. A year later Xavi Hernández claimed Sterling was “winning [the] race” to replace Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — the street footballer tamed by Pep Guardiola’s rigid systems. By 2021 he had twice finished in the top 15 of Ballon d’Or voting. He kept producing when it mattered as England reached the Euro 2020 final: his two goals were the only ones of England’s group stage, he opened the scoring against Germany in the last 16 and he won the penalty that led to the decisive goal against Denmark in the semi-final.
Even his attempts to do good seemed to turn some against him. He became a central figure in calling out racism in society, particularly his own depiction in the media after criticism for buying his mother a house. In 2020 he recorded an anti-racism video declaring “I will never tire of being black”, texting contributors including Kevin De Bruyne, David Alaba and Jordan Henderson to ask them to take part. He received an MBE a year later. If anything, it made some who did not know him personally more fervently opposed to him. One source who worked closely with Sterling describes him as “polite and charming”: “He doesn’t come across as arrogant or having an attitude. He’s a nice guy, shy — quite bashful.”
There has been a degree of glee in some quarters at how sharply his career declined after he joined Chelsea. He had won almost everything and, at 27, was entering the years when many players peak. Sterling was the man Tuchel told Boehly to prioritise, the owner captivated by the prospect of making a forward fresh from a fourth Premier League title in five years the club’s marquee signing. Sterling signed a five-year contract on £325,000 a week. Tuchel was sacked seven weeks later.
In the years that followed he played under Graham Potter, Frank Lampard, Mauricio Pochettino and Enzo Maresca. One source questioned whether leaving the rigid structures of Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool and Guardiola at Manchester City for the chaos at Chelsea was damaging. His output at City — 23 goals and 14 assists in 2017-18, 25 and 16 in 2018-19, 31 and 10 in 2019-20 — dwindled.
A collective decision at Chelsea in summer 2024 to sell him was made on the basis of his personal life and his ability to play in the team. In a particularly brutal week, two days before the start of the 2024-25 season, Maresca told Sterling he was not part of his plans and left him out of the squad for the game against Manchester City and a Conference League tie with Servette in which Pedro Neto wore his No 7 shirt. Sterling was forced to train away from the first team. It seems he was not entirely innocent: he was known to turn up late for training when he was supposed to set an example, though sources close to him say he never faced a recorded disciplinary at Chelsea. His treatment was ultimately harsh, though it is understood Maresca assessed his wingers during friendlies before a final call was made.
Sterling made clear he wanted to stay in London for his family, and Chelsea reluctantly sanctioned a loan to Arsenal. He scored once, in a Carabao Cup game against League One club Bolton on 25 September 2024 — his most recent professional goal. On his return, sources say he was told to stay away from the main facilities at Cobham, though a Chelsea source denied this was the case. Sterling declined loan interest from Juventus but, by January, after six months without playing, needed to move for the sake of his career. The club agreed to buy him out of the remaining 18 months of his contract at a reduced fee. Their statement announcing his departure was 23 words long.
He chose to rebuild under Robin van Persie at Feyenoord. It was disastrous: he was ruthlessly mocked on social media by the club’s fans and laughed at in the stadium. One source who worked with Sterling compared his career trajectory with Michael Owen’s — two teenage prodigies whose speed was their greatest asset and whose careers faded as it diminished. Owen played his final season at Stoke, making eight Premier League appearances from the bench, and retired at 33. Sterling will be 32 in December. Another source questioned whether winning so much and earning vast sums had dulled the desire required to stay at the top.
Sterling returned home from the Netherlands and, 11 days later, drove his Lamborghini for more than an hour on motorways during rush hour while inhaling nitrous oxide from balloons. He admitted to officers, when arrested in May, that he had a “problem” with nitrous oxide — a stark admission from an athlete with hopes of playing again.
Tuchel, speaking on Friday, said: “It’s sad to see that someone struggles, because he was a devoted father for his children and he was a family guy, a nice guy to be around. It just seems that he goes through a difficult period. I’m not sure how much is his fault; sometimes you just enter a strange spiral in your life, a downward spiral. Thoughts are with him of course. The belief is always that he can turn it around.”
Sterling learned he faces the real prospect of prison as he stood in the dock in court dressed in black last month, while Liverpool were preparing for a League Cup game against Tottenham. “Before he was Raheem Sterling the international footballer, the Premier League player and the name everybody knew, he was simply a young boy with a football who somebody had to believe in,” Anderson says. Whether anyone still believes in him now is the question left hanging over his sentencing.