Y10 House Speech

Firstly, premiership football can have grave psychological damage, especially to the young. Clair Dunne spoke about her teenage son, Reece Staples, who was described by a Nottingham Evening Post banner in the early years of this century as "the next big thing." in an interview with The Independent newspaper. He trialled with Manchester United before leaving Notts County youth for Nottingham Forest on a big fee in the days when his world seemed a fabulous place. Like many boys, the step from youth to senior football proved too much for Reece, who was released at the start of the 2008/09 season.Dumped out of the gilded cage, the boy felt no cause for hope, fell into bad company, then into crime, and died on a police station floor when his attempt to smuggle cocaine into Britain by swallowing it went catastrophically wrong. He was just 19.

Next, football cause many clubs to go into debt. To use another example from England, Portsmouth had to spend so much money just to maintain them in the Premier League that they found themselves in £119 million of debt in 2009. Subsequently they were pushed all the way down the professional league system to League Two, a place where they continued to struggle for several years with money issues. Although now in League One and on the road to recovery, almost ten years later, the sheer financial pressure of the Premier League still will continue to have a lasting impact upon the club for many years to come.

Football is home to many bad examples and with the mass media coverage of premiership football, this bad and ridiculous behaviour is spread across the world and is viewed by many young children who, seeing their idol do it, is likely to copy too. This can range from kicking, for example when Chelsea forward Eden Hazard kicked as ball boy in January 2013, to stamping, like Cristiano Ronaldo against Real Betis in the Spanish top division in 2017 and even biting like Luis Suarez, who, while playing at Ajax in the Eredivisie in 2010, was suspended for seven games for biting PSV Eindhoven's Otman Bakkal on the shoulder.

Incidents of racism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination are up by 38% in England's top four leagues compared to this time last term, anti-racism body Kick It Out has said. There have been 111 incidents since August - 64 in the Premier League and 47 in the Championship, League One and League Two, compared to 40 and 29 respectively at the midway stage of last season. Lord Ouseley, chair of Kick It Out, said the figures "should act as a wake-up call to everyone in the sport". Overall there has been a 59% increase in incidents of discrimination this season across the top four leagues as well as in the top four tiers of non-league football, the grassroots game and social media. There have been 282 incidents reported to Kick It Out so far season compared to 177 last season.

• Causes many clubs to go into debt (Eg. Portsmouth in £119 million of debt)

• London's football clubs paid less than five per cent of the £7m it took to police football matches in the capital last season

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