Ex-São Paulo Argentine midfielder reveals betting addiction | OneFootball

Argentine midfielder Jonatan Gómez, who had a brief spell at São Paulo, publicly revealed that he suffers from gambling addiction — a dependency on games of chance and online betting.

Currently without a club, the 36-year-old player said in an interview with the YouTube channel MargaTV that he lost all the wealth he had built throughout his career on virtual casino platforms.

According to the player, the addiction began after his departure from Brazilian football. Signed by São Paulo in 2017, Gómez was loaned to CSA and Sport before returning to Argentina in 2021 to play for Argentinos Juniors. In his account, the athlete described the impact of the addiction on his behavior and family life, highlighting mood swings, social isolation, and constant irritability.

Threatened with death!

In addition to the financial loss, Gómez said he was the victim of an extortion scheme stemming from an initial debt of 50,000 dollars (around R$ 259,000) incurred on an illegal gambling platform.

The player said that, in October 2025, he was approached and forced into a vehicle under death threats. On that occasion, he was made to sign four promissory notes registered by a notary, raising the confessed debt to 505,000 dollars (approximately R$ 2.6 million).

The case was formally reported to the authorities in February of this year, but was ultimately dismissed by the Argentine courts. The midfielder lamented the handling of the case, claiming he was not given the opportunity to testify before the prosecutor in charge. “The prosecutor did not even intend to hear me out,” he said.

Strong quotes

“I lost everything. Today I’ve lost everything. I’m going through this with my family, and they are almost devastated. I’m dealing with a situation where I don’t know if I’ll be able to play football again, which is what I love most,” he said.

“It distracts you not only at work, but in everyday life. It changes your mood, it changes your personality. There are times now when I sit down to talk with friends and they tell me: ‘Hey, Jony, you weren’t really there.’ And I didn’t realize it, or I hid away. I didn’t want to go out or do things. The same happened with my wife. My wife told me: ‘Jony, what’s wrong with you?’ That irritated me all the time, because this is what it leads to,” the midfielder explained.

“These phases are interrupted when you get hit hard, when your wife finds out, or when someone finds out, or, as in this case, when you have a debt and don’t know how to get out of it and you hide out of fear. This is a drug. It’s more silent, because I can be talking and holding the phone in my hand and you don’t notice that I’m playing.”

“I would change everything. The money, the moment, everything, just to have peace, so that my children can see me happy, because they haven’t seen me happy in a long time, and so that all the people who stood by me, and those I hurt, do not suffer the way they did. Everything I have. Everything, absolutely everything,” Gómez concluded.

Football journeyman

Developed at Rosario Central, Jonatan Gómez spent most of his career in South American football. In Argentina, he played for clubs such as Banfield, Arsenal de Sarandí, Atlético Tucumán, Racing, and Sarmiento de Junín.

For São Paulo, the Argentine made only 15 appearances between 2017 and 2019, with no goals or assists and two loan spells during that period.

Abroad, in addition to his time in Brazilian football, he played for Colombia’s Independiente Santa Fe and Deportivo Pasto, as well as having brief spells with Spain’s Real Murcia and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Fayha.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.