‘Bored stupid’ kids set up anti-lockdown soccer leagues

A BACKSTREET schoolboy football league has started up in Dublin in defiance of the Covid-19 restrictions.

Teenagers from the inner-city and other areas have been organising a makeshift league through Instagram.

The teams have names such as Queen Street FC, Dublin 1’s Finest and the Low Expectations.

Their Instagram accounts ask other team organisers to ‘DM for an 11-aside’.

One young player told the Irish Mail on Sunday that the secret leagues started because ‘kids are bored stupid’.

‘We just want to be back playing our football and our normal clubs are closed, God knows when they’ll be back. We just want something to do besides hanging around,’ the teenager said.

‘As well as that, we want to keep our fitness up for when the football does start again.’

A match between two teams of 15 and 16-year-olds at Ringsend Park this week was broken up by gardaí because it was flouting Level 5 restrictions.

An eyewitness reported that one of the team members asked the gardaí who stopped the match, ‘Would you rather we were out robbing handbags?’

Anthony Flynn, independent councillor for the north inner-city, told the MoS that the situation in the area, where ‘young people have no boxing, no football and no youth clubs’ has to be addressed.

‘I’ve heard about these games and I’m not condoning them but what you have here is a situation where young people are taking the initiative because they’re desperate for something to do.

‘We can’t just dump our young people in front of screens. We’re almost a year into this pandemic, the impact on youth mental health has been huge.

‘We need to come up with better solutions,’ he said.