Liverpool's Raheem Sterling Pictured Apparently Smoking a Shisha Pipe

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Raheem Sterling smokes pipe as strong as 200 cigarettes.. pic.twitter.com/uZRDKPTGY4

— Uber Football Facts (@UberFootbalI) April 11, 2015"

Liverpool's Raheem Sterling has once again found himself in the British newspapers for unwanted reasons.

Per ESPN FC, his contract issue has dominated the sports pages for the last few weeks, but it is an extra-curricular activity from the 20-year-old which has drawn the attention of the Sunday Mirror. 

The newspaper has published a picture of Sterling in which he is reported to be smoking on a shisha pipe, though there is no confirmation of the story at this time. 

The article rather sensationally makes the claim that the pipe is "as strong as 200 cigarettes" in its online headline of the story. 

Although when you actually dig into it, the exact health effects cited by the newspaper are a bit vaguer.

The Mirror reports:

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It is difficult to say exactly how much smoke or toxic substances smokers are exposed to – but in one puff of shisha some users could inhale the same amount of tobacco smoke as from a whole cigarette.

And the Department of Health warns shishas – a water-pipe in which fruit-scented tobacco is burnt using coal and smoked – produce levels of toxic carbon monoxide four to five times higher than cigarettes.

"

Either way, it is not a great look for Sterling at a time when his public image has been taking a bit of a battering.

The accompanying Snapchat message on the picture—"1 down another 3 to go"—was reported by the Mirror to refer "to how the group had prepared more pipes to smoke," but this is also unconfirmed.

[Sunday Mirror]