Jay Emmanuel-Thomas: From Arsenal prodigy to medicine smuggler

As a footballer, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas appeared destined for greatness. But a drug-smuggling conviction has left his profession and fame in tatters. How did issues unravel so dramatically for a participant as soon as tipped for the highest?

Hailed by legendary Arsenal supervisor Arsene Wenger as a footballer who may “play wherever”, Emmanuel-Thomas was marked out early on as having elite potential.

Imposing, technically gifted and surprisingly agile, the striker appeared to have the world at his ft.

But a profession that promised a lot at Arsenal faltered and noticed him spend years flitting between the second and third tiers of English soccer.

In 2020 he moved to play in Scotland and was nonetheless plying his commerce north of the border when, on 18 September, he was arrested at his residence in Gourock, close to Glasgow.

Sixteen days earlier, Border Force officers had stopped two girls at London Stansted Airport and located medicine of their circumstances.

It was not a minor haul; they had been looking at hashish with a avenue worth of £600,000.

How did it get there? The proof quickly led detectives to Emmanuel-Thomas.

Wind again a decade and a half, and issues had been very completely different.

It is 26 May 2009, and Arsenal’s newest batch of academy abilities can barely include their pleasure.

The younger prospects, together with Jack Wilshere and Francis Coquelin, have simply received the FA Youth Cup.

One participant specifically has stood out: their 16-year-old captain, Emmanuel-Thomas, who has scored in each spherical of the competitors.

“These younger males have a really vivid future certainly,” remarked one commentator.

But regardless of occurring to make 5 first-team appearances, it was not fairly to be for Emmanuel-Thomas.

He was shipped out on a number of loans earlier than leaving the north London membership for Ipswich Town.

It was a transfer that excited supporters in Suffolk, who had been eager to see what the previous Arsenal starlet may produce.

However, 71 video games and eight objectives later, Emmanuel-Thomas had not fairly made the mark followers hoped for, and he moved to Bristol City in a participant change deal.

Here, he helped the Robins safe promotion to the Championship and have become one thing of a cult hero, scoring 21 objectives in his first season.

A transfer to Queens Park Rangers adopted, with subsequent mortgage spells at MK Dons and Gillingham.

But in 2019, Emmanuel-Thomas accepted a switch to a Thai-based group that may alter the course of his life.

It is believed he was tempted into the nation’s medicine underworld whereas enjoying for PTT Rayong, a membership that folded in the identical yr.

Despite later strikes to an Indian facet and several other Scottish outfits, together with Aberdeen, Emmanuel-Thomas by no means shook off the prison connections he made.

By the time he took a six-month contract at Greenock Morton, a 40-minute drive from Glasgow, the sport was nearly up.

As he lined up for them against Queens Park on 14 September, he would have absolutely identified the regulation was about to meet up with him.

The girls arrested at Stansted had been his 33-year-old girlfriend, Yasmin Piotrowska, and her buddy Rosie Rowland, 28.

Emmanuel Thomas, by then 33, appeared in courtroom charged with orchestrating the tried importation of medication, and was sacked by his membership.

Detectives found he had duped Ms Piotrowska, from north-west London, and Ms Rowland, from Chelmsford, into travelling to Thailand with the promise of £2,500 in money and an all-expenses-paid journey.

Their job? To deliver residence two suitcases every, crammed with what they had been assured was gold, Chelmsford Crown Court heard.

They flew enterprise class from Bangkok, touchdown in Essex through Dubai.

Unknown to them, they had been smuggling in hashish with a avenue worth of £600,000, vacuum-packed contained in the 4 circumstances.

The pair had been stopped and arrested by Border Force officers, earlier than being charged with drug importation offences.

With the pair in custody, and Emmanuel-Thomas later remanded, police probed how the medicine made it to the UK.

They quickly discovered the participant was the middleman between suppliers in Thailand and sellers within the UK, in response to the National Crime Agency (NCA).

With the footballer’s encouragement, the ladies had additionally made a near-identical journey in July, having been made related guarantees of money and a lavish vacation.

On his solution to custody, Emmanuel-Thomas even informed NCA officers: “I simply really feel sorry for the women.”

His first court hearing in September was informed he carried out “in depth analysis” into flights and instructions, together with which airports the ladies had been going to.

David Philips, a senior NCA investigator, mentioned “organised criminals like Emmanuel-Thomas” used persuasion and fee to get folks to do their soiled work.

“But the chance of getting caught could be very excessive and it merely is not value it,” he added.

During a number of courtroom appearances, Emmanuel-Thomas, of Cardwell Road, Gourock, strenuously denied making an attempt to import hashish.

However, he modified his plea to responsible at the beginning of May and restrictions on reporting this had been lifted on Wednesday.

Charges in opposition to each Ms Piotrowska and Ms Rowland had been dropped after the prosecution revealed that they had been tricked by Emmanuel-Thomas.

It adopted what David Josse KC described as a “very thorough investigation”.

Emmanuel-Thomas appeared through video hyperlink from HMP Chelmsford at his newest courtroom listening to.

When he returns to courtroom for sentencing, on a date nonetheless to be confirmed, it is not going to be his first time within the highlight.

But will probably be for very completely different causes to the day he lifted that trophy aloft in 2009.