A Premier League star was targeted in an alleged blackmail – then his friend was shot

When Brian Brobbey arrived in the Premier League at Sunderland last summer, it was considered a coup.

The Dutch striker had scored 56 goals in 163 appearances back home for Ajax, one of football’s grandest institutions, winners of four European Cups (including the 1995 edition, when it had been rebranded to the Champions League) and 36 league titles in the Netherlands.

For Sunderland — newly promoted into the Premier League — to land a player of such calibre, a striker Manchester United had wanted to sign just three years before, was startling. The deal, worth £21.5million ($29.4m) after add-ons, was big money for a club of Sunderland’s resources but seemed worth the investment.

And so it has proved. Brobbey, 24, has been at the heart of the Premier League’s surprise success story this season, playing an integral role in helping Sunderland keep in touch with the Premier League’s pacesetters. They are 11th in the 20-team table after 26 of the 38 games, but in points terms are still in the hunt for European qualification.

Brian Brobbey has made a big impact at Sunderland (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

His leading role is all the more impressive given the strange and troubling story that has hung over his career since 2022.

Brobbey is completely innocent of any wrongdoing, but found himself at the heart of a case that involves a notorious gangster, a near-fatal shooting and an alleged extortion attempt on him.

Only last summer, around three months before Brobbey’s move to Sunderland, did it become a matter of public record in the Netherlands, following an extensive investigation by crime correspondent Paul Vugts for the newspaper Het Parool.

The Athletic has collaborated with Vugts and Het Parool to tell that story in full, using his original reporting — based on multiple sources with knowledge of the affair — as well as details of the shooting case in a publicly-available court document.

Brobbey was named by Het Parool for the first time in June after his identity was revealed in a court hearing, with the newspaper’s reporting subsequently picked up by other media outlets. The Athletic is naming him here on the basis that it is only by fully exposing extortion claims — how and why certain individuals are targeted, and what the impact can be on the victim and those around them — that it can be properly combated.

An unwitting victim in this affair, Brobbey’s story is sadly typical of how the worlds of footballers and criminals in Amsterdam often overlap, and asks questions of how clubs respond to the pressures facing their highest-profile employees.

In December 2022, Brobbey’s life changed.

He was attending a techno music festival called Valhalla in Amsterdam, his home city and where he had returned five months earlier, rejoining Ajax after a difficult spell at German club RB Leipzig.

As the evening of December 17 blurred into the next morning, Brobbey was approached by a man the Dutch court called Jeymon A, a local criminal also known as ‘Piccalo’, who asked to walk with him to a place where they could talk.

The pair had grown up in Zuidoost, a suburb in eastern Amsterdam that has produced many footballers. Though they knew each other by sight, Brobbey did not know anything else about him.

The court would later hear that Jeymon A was a “ripper”, the slang name given to a drug thief and dealer, who could easily get his hands on firearms. By the age of 13, he had a criminal record that was more than 20 pages long. In September 2024, he was sentenced to almost nine years in prison for directing drug dealers connected to the cocaine baron, Jos Leijdekkers, who remains a fugitive after being sentenced to 24 years behind bars in absentia as part of the same case.

Jeymon A told Brobbey that Moroccan criminals in Utrecht, a city 50km south-east of Amsterdam, were looking for him, but he had solved the problem and it would be reasonable if the player compensated him accordingly.

Brobbey responded by saying that he rarely visited Utrecht, insisting that he did not know any Moroccans who lived there.

The music-festival encounter ended there, but Brobbey later related Jeymon A’s story to a childhood friend. As a wealthy professional footballer, Brobbey was used to being approached by opportunistic strangers, but after supplying a photograph of Jeymon A to his friend, he hoped the issue would blow over.

It didn’t. The following month, in January 2023, fireworks were dropped through the letterbox of Brobbey’s mother-in-law’s home in Zuidoost.

Zuidoost has produced many footballers, including Brian Brobbey (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

Two months later, on March 18 or 19, an explosive was thrown at a car belonging to Brobbey parked in Zuidoost. On March 19, he was not in the starting XI as Ajax lost 3-2 to Feyenoord, a result that proved to be pivotal in the race for that season’s Dutch title.

Initially, police believed the attack on Brobbey’s car to be intimidation from hooligans associated with Feyenoord, the Rotterdam club who are Ajax’s fiercest rivals. Only later was it linked to the alleged extortion.

Then, on April 14, Brobbey’s sister-in-law had her car set on fire in Zuidoost.

Three months later, after Brobbey and two of his three brothers played padel with the childhood friend with whom he had originally discussed his problems, the friend contacted Jeymon A on Snapchat to set up a meeting in Zuidoost.

When Jeymon A showed Brobbey’s friend something on his phone, he pulled out a firearm. According to witnesses, Jeymon A fired at Brobbey’s friend at least three times as he tried to flee. As the friend stumbled, one bullet hit him in the buttock and pierced his small intestine.

The friend was able to drive to a local police station. From there, he was taken to a hospital to have emergency surgery, saving his life. Police found the friend’s blood-soaked clothes, as well as three bullets and cartridges, but Brobbey’s friend refused to tell the authorities anything about the attack when questioned.

A tip from the Dutch Criminal Intelligence Team, however, quickly identified Jeymon A as the shooter and police established, partly through the use of listening devices, that he had been in the vicinity of the crime at the time of the attack. With the police following communications from people believed to be involved, Brobbey’s childhood friend sent a message to an associate saying that he “took a bullet for him (Brobbey).”

Other conversations included mentions of a “G’tje” — Dutch slang for a Glock pistol, the type the friend was shot with — as well as a claim from the friend’s mother (obtained by police through a wiretap) that the incident was carried out to increase pressure on Brobbey.

A week or so after the shooting, Brobbey received a text message revealing that it was now known that he was living in Amstelveen, to the south of Amsterdam. He was told he had to pay €150,000 (£130,000; $180,000) by the end of the month — otherwise, the message read, “we’re going to do it differently”.

There is no evidence that Brobbey ever paid the money and the shooting of his friend proved to be the last violent incident connected to him.

Jeymon A was arrested on unrelated charges of directing drug dealers, and was sentenced to nine years in prison in September 2024. Two months later, he received another term of no less than 10 years for the attempted manslaughter of Brobbey’s friend, as well as possession of a firearm and possession of more than 1.6 kilograms (3.5lb) of MDMA, an illegal psychoactive drug, he had stored in a bag in his gas-meter cupboard. He was never charged with extortion.

According to police and club sources, who spoke to Vugts for his original report on the condition of anonymity to protect their positions, it was only after the shooting in July 2023 that certain figures at Ajax discovered what was happening to one of their players.

The club promptly contacted a detective who, alongside a colleague, regularly provides information and hosts “awareness talks” for footballers, urging the importance of keeping away from criminals.

For over a decade, Ajax have been attempting to educate the club’s young players about the dangers of being drawn into criminality. During presentations, detectives stress that sometimes even innocent contacts and favours can have unforeseen but significant consequences.

Brian Brobbey came through the youth system at Ajax (John Thys/AFP via Getty Images)

On this occasion, detectives came to the club for a talk with Brobbey and his agent, Jose Fortes Rodriguez, but the striker did not want to report the case to the police after discussions with his relatives. He was concerned that things would only get worse. He was aware of the street code in Zuidoost, which dictated that you never talk to the authorities.

Yet detectives investigating the shooting and, by extension, the alleged extortion as a possible motive met Brobbey at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in October 2023. He was returning with the rest of the Ajax squad and staff following a 1-1 draw with AEK Athens in the Europa League, and the detectives confiscated his phone.

Brobbey was indignant — he suspected the details of his conversation with the two detectives at Ajax had been passed on, although the officers who spoke to him at the airport insisted that was not the case.

According to police and club sources, Ajax became aware of Brobbey’s conversation with the police at the airport, although the news did not reach the club’s directors. Middle-ranking executives felt that the issue had been resolved.

The club offered Brobbey support but with the player considering it a private matter, they saw no reason to get more involved, provided he continued to train well and there were no further concerning developments.

In the two seasons when the alleged attempted extortion was believed to be taking place — 2022-23 and 2023-24 — Brobbey scored 14 and 22 goals, the most productive seasons of his professional career. In contrast, in the season Jeymon A was sent to prison (2024-25), his form slumped and he managed just eight goals in 44 appearances.

Internally, the matter received little attention at Ajax. This was partly because the player himself was not raising it as an issue, but also because many of the staff who knew what had happened between December 2022 and July 2023 had left by then — part of the natural churn of executives that happens at most big football clubs. It had been a particularly tumultuous time at Ajax, with many senior personnel coming and going.

Precious little about the case was also being made public. At the first formal hearings, the possible motive for the shooting — Brobbey’s alleged extortion — was not mentioned by the public prosecutor. Neither was Brobbey’s name, protecting him from media attention.

The details of the alleged extortion case — again, excluding Brobbey’s name — were provided in the criminal file, however, so that the court could have as complete a picture as possible of what had happened and why.

On November 9, 2024, the presiding judge mentioned Brobbey’s extortion as a motive for the shooting. Vugts, who had been tipped off that the player’s name would be cited, made sure he was in court to hear it.

Brian Brobbey playing for the Netherlands’ under-17s against their Turkey counterparts in 2018 (Laurens Lindhout/Soccrate/Getty Images)

After Brobbey’s name was cited, Vugts contacted the striker’s lawyer, Leon van Kleef, to inform him of his intention to report it. Van Kleef persuaded him and Het Parool to anonymise Brobbey, arguing that publishing the article could harm him in the middle of a Dutch title race. The paper agreed to only refer to ‘an Ajax player’.

In June last year, with Ajax’s season over, Het Parool named Brobbey, believing his story, as explained in its reporting at the time, “raises questions of principle and justifies extensive reconstruction”. For his part, Vugts, who has covered numerous such cases around the Amsterdam organised-crime world, believes that only by shining a light on extortion and its consequences can it be eradicated.

Brobbey and Jeymon A were invited to contribute towards that reporting but Van Kleef stated that his client did “not wish to cooperate with this publication in any way”.

Meanwhile, on behalf of Jeymon A, lawyer Veerle Hammerstein said: “As Het Parool knows, my client was convicted of a shooting incident in 2023 and two other facts, which are not related to this incident. An appeal has been lodged against this ruling but a substantive hearing has not yet been scheduled.

“Although the blackmail of Brian Brobbey is mentioned in the file as a possible reason for this shooting incident, further investigation by the police has not yielded any evidence that my client was involved. He was never prosecuted for this type of extortion practice.”

It was more than two months after the revelations around Brobbey’s alleged extortion, in September, that he joined Sunderland on a five-year contract.

The transfer was, to an extent, an accident. Sunderland had initially signed Marc Guiu from Chelsea on a season-long loan, only for the young striker to be recalled by his parent club due to an injury crisis. Having admired Brobbey for some time, Sunderland duly made their move on the final day of the summer transfer window.

At the time, Ajax technical director Alex Kroes spoke of a “sensible choice for both parties on both a sporting and financial level” in an article published on the club’s website. His equivalent at Sunderland, Kristjaan Speakman, described Brobbey as “a different profile to the other forwards we have in the squad” and a “really interesting player to acquire” in an interview with club media.

The move has paid off for everyone, with Brobbey scoring five goals in 17 appearances since November 8, and helping promoted Sunderland emerge as unlikely contenders for European qualification.

“His pathway is a good example for everyone at the club,” Sunderland head coach Roger Le Bris told a press conference this month when asked about Brobbey’s form. “He started… I wouldn’t say slowly, he just needed enough time to find the right level fitness-wise, the connection with his team-mates, goals, his involvement in the build-up. Game after game, it’s getting better, and I hope it won’t stop.”

Sunderland manager Regis Le Bris is pleased with Brian Brobbey’s progress (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Quite how Brobbey has been affected by what he has been through is unclear. His agent and Sunderland were contacted for comment by The Athletic.

There are also questions left hanging for Ajax and, by extension, other clubs who may find themselves in a similar position.

Did they do enough to support Brobbey once it became clear that he had fallen victim to such a serious criminal enterprise? Dealing with such a matter is undoubtedly complicated if, as in this case, the player opts not to engage — but equally, clubs have a responsibility to protect their employees. Ajax were also approached for comment by The Athletic.

Ultimately, Brobbey’s brief, if terrifying, brush with Amsterdam’s criminal underworld has not derailed his football career. He seems happy and settled at one of the Premier League’s most upwardly-mobile clubs.

After enduring so much, Brobbey will be fixed on giving one of the season’s feel-good stories a happy ending.