Young Reporter - Matiss
The Influence of Football on Society
Football. The world’s sport. Over 5 Billion fans. The influence of the beautiful game is enormous. From the extensive rise in shirt sales to just the smile on the face of a fan when their team scores, football influences lives. However, the bad side is just not talked about enough.
It is important to realise that football plays a crucial role in people’s mental health and wellbeing. From the thrill of the ball hitting the back of the net to the immense disappointment of a loss, mental health goes to the extreme and back when watching the most prestigious sport in the world. It is recorded that 28.5% of football fans admit the result of their club's match affects their mental health significantly.. Mental health is becoming an important subject in football and players experience it too.
As well as this, abuse is unfortunately a common place in football with many players and fans receiving it. Among this abuse there is mostly racism and sexism. Racial equality has been striving in recent years, however, in football it seems to be behind in time. Fans at games shouting verbal abuse is unacceptable and creates a negative, toxic atmosphere around the stadium and within the culture of football. Some supporters also take to social media where they post abusive comments to the players which they become affected by, after reading them online.
The media often only reports racism in higher levels of European football, although reports are common, they don’t get published in the media often. In the last season of football, there have been over 1,000 cases discriminatory cases, a 65% rise on the previous season. This shows that a lack of progressiveness as now racism is seeming to become more common and a part of football culture which is the opposite of what we want.
Matiss Gelwan Williams - University College School
