Jonathan Gómez played for Rosario Central, Racing and Argentinos Juniors. Today, at Sarmiento de Junín, he tells a story unlike any from the soccer field.
In a radio interview with Roberto Caferra, in Rosario, he admitted that he is a gambling addict. He accumulated a debt of 50.000 dollars on an illegal online betting platform and ended up signing four promissory notes for 505.000 dollars, pressured, he claims, by extortionists. The courts dismissed his complaint for lack of evidence, but the damage had already been done: threats, visits to his parents’ house and liens placed on his assets.
Today, he has gone four months without betting, is on medication and under medical supervision. But the wound remains open: he does not know whether he will be able to play soccer again, and his family, he says, was left almost devastated.