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Paul Gascoigne’s agent has told the BBC the former England footballer’s life is in danger after he started drinking again.

The 45 year old broke down on stage at a charity event on Thursday.

Gascoigne, who openly admits to having problems with alcoholism, has spent time in rehab and was sectioned twice in 2008 under the Mental Health Act.

His agent Terry Baker told BBC Radio 5 live: “He won’t thank me for saying it but he immediately needs to get help.”

Baker added: “Whatever’s happened to him in the five or six weeks since I saw him before Christmas he is not as well as he has been.

“He’s been absolutely fine, he really has, and now he isn’t. But I think he knows that.

“His life is always in danger because he is an alcoholic. Maybe no one can save him – I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Gascoigne’s drinking problems started during his playing days. In 1998, shortly after his divorce from his wife Sheryl, he was admitted to the Marchwood Priory hospital to receive treatment for stress and drink problems.

In 2001, whilst playing at Everton, Gascoigne admitted himself to an alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Arizona on the insistence of his then manager Walter Smith.

Gascoigne retired from playing in 2004 but his problems continued.

In 2008, he was arrested in Newcastle and detained under the Mental Health Act and was later sectioned following reports that he was acting strangely in Hemel Hempstead.

More recently he has been treated at the Priory Clinic and the Providence Projects treatment centre in Bournemouth.

The former Newcastle, Tottenham and Lazio player was appearing in “An Evening with Paul Gascoigne” at the Park Inn in Northampton on Thursday and Baker says that he tried to cancel the show after he saw that Gascoigne was drinking.

He said: “He wasn’t in the condition he’d been in for the last two years. He was slurring a bit.

“I phoned the organisation and said it was possibly best we didn’t put him on but he was insistent he had some new jokes and he was going to be in tip-top form. He was fairly upset but insisted he wanted to go on.

“When he came on the stage, we sat him down and he just started shaking. He’s always a bit nervous on the stage, but he just started shaking uncontrollably.”

When asked why Gazza was upset, Baker explained that a friend of his had recently died in a medical facility – whilst holding his hand – and that it was “haunting him”.

Baker says he spoke to Gascoigne again on Saturday and that he was “fairly incoherent”.

The agent had not seen Gascoigne since early December and added that he hadn’t witnessed the former footballer drink alcohol in two years.

He said: “I swear to you I have never seen Paul drink in all the time I’ve known him, until very very recently.

“He has definitely been clean for most of the last two years, absolutely for definite. And he has made huge massive efforts to get his life on track and it’s just gone a bit wrong at the moment.

“I love him really, he’s the nicest of nicest people and he’s got himself in a mess again. But it’s not new to him. We’re desperately worried about him.”

 

Gazza’s problems with alcohol

June 1996: An alcohol-related “dentist-chair” stunt in a Hong Kong bar during England’s Euro 96 preparations puts Gascoigne on the front pages of the newspapers back in Britain.

August 1998: Gascoigne’s marriage to Sheryl ends after she is granted a quick divorce. The player left his wife with a black eye and badly bruised face and arm after he attacked her in a drunken rage in Gleneagles, Scotland.

October 1998: The 31-year-old is admitted to the Marchwood Priory hospital to receive treatment for stress and drink problems.

June 2001: Gascoigne admits himself to an alcohol rehabilitation clinic in Arizona on his Everton manager Walter Smith’s insistence.

May 2007: Undergoes emergency surgery for a perforated stomach ulcer.

February 2008: Gascoigne is arrested in Newcastle and detained under the Mental Health Act.

June 2008: The former England footballer is sectioned under the Mental Health Act following reports that he was acting strangely in Hemel Hempstead.

Source: BBC Sport

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