Tottenham striker Emmanuel Adebayor has given a lengthy insight into the complicated personal life that has at times overshadowed his career.

The 31-year-old has on occasions been given leave by Tottenham in order to attend to unspecified family business, and on Tuesday night he laid a lot of that bare, offering a possible explanation as to some of the things he has been going through off the field.

In an apparently unprompted Facebook post that amounted to 877 words, Adebayor outlined a lot of the items he has bought his family during his professional career, saying he wanted other families to learn from what he had experienced.

“I have kept these stories for a long time but I think today it is worth sharing some of them with you. It’s true that family matters should be solved internally and not in public but I am doing this so that hopefully all families can learn from what happened in mine,” he wrote.

“Also keep in mind that none of this is about money.”

He went on to say with his first professional wage, aged 17, he “built a house for his family and made sure they are safe” while listing medical treatments he had paid for his mother to have.

The ex-Arsenal man cited the money he had given for his mother to start a “cookie business” and added: “I organised a meeting in 2005 to solve our family issues. When I asked them about their opinion, they said I should build each family member a house and give each of them a monthly wage.”

Adebayor’s complicated family life saw him given time off by Spurs in November - being quoted at the time as saying his mother had been practising black magic on him. His open message now appears to have answered some of the questions as to why he was allowed to return home.

‘If I am writing this, the main purpose is not to expose my family members. I just want other African families to learn from this. Thank you,“ he said at the end of his post.