Daily Rag: Gamers Addicted To Foot-to-ball

Games psychotherapist, Stephen Bishop, has told the Daily Rag that games players are showing an increasingly worrying addiction to football. Players of Modern Warfare 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Peggle are apparently spending up to one and a half hours playing the sport without food, rest, or any form of videogaming.

Bishop told the Rag:

"I have worked with gamers in the top four clans in the professional leagues, two e-sports champions, and my local LAN cafe, Fleetforest Village. We were travelling with one gamer who had played football for three hours on the pitch. He hadn’t taken any any food with him, and hadn’t gamed. He’d then gone to his room and missed the Friday evening talk and meal. They all seem to love watching the Premiership."

Fear that football addiction is affecting an increasing number of gamers only furthers concerns that games like Pro Evolution Soccer, FIFA, and Sensible Soccer are encouraging gamers to pursue outdoor sports.

Bishop, whose clinical studies revealed that 90 minutes of football is the same as sniffing eight pints of glue, has worked with children as young as 8 and 9 who are already showing signs of football addiction. He put us in touch with Mary Pheblemynd, who told her harrowing tale.

"My son will be down the park playing football until all hours, often not coming home until half past nine. I just bought him Mario Galaxy 2, and he's not even touched it. Sometimes he'll play football without eating or drinking for over ninety minutes. His father and I are besides ourselves."

And yet despite this neither FIFA nor UEFA will admit the dangers of their sport, refusing to regulate the amount of football young people are playing. Bishop advises concerned parents,

"If your child is showing signs of football addiction, the best thing you can do is lock them in their room with a decent gaming PC or console, and just don't let them be outside unsupervised."