Addiction to internet pornography is
a growing problem among cash-rich Premiership players with time on
their hands according to Peter Kay, the chief executive of the
Sporting Chance clinic.
Sporting Chance has been assisting sportsmen and women with
addictive illnesses since its foundation in 2000.
Kay revealed that while there have been high-profile cases of
gambling, drink and drug problems among professional footballers,
an increasing number are now switching on their laptops and
accessing pornographic websites to fill their time between playing
matches and training.
'When you start going into a porn site it leads on to other porn
sites and then maybe more risky material,' Kay told BBC Radio Five
Live.
'It must be stressed that if a 21-year-old is scanning a bit of
porn and accessing pleasure from it, doing that once then that is
not unusual and nor is it a problem.
'It becomes a problem when he is doing it 14, 15, 16 times and then
when he stops, he is playing a football game and he is thinking `I
can't wait to get back to that site'.'
Five Live also interviewed an unnamed Premiership player who
admitted how he had fallen foul of internet sites offering thrills
of one description or another.
'You can get hooked on anything, going on one site for two minutes
isn't enough,' he said.
'You don't realise how much you're spending until you see it on
your bill at the end of the month.
'On porn websites you have got advertisements for the porn and you
end up spending more money on there. It's kind of like kids in a
sweet shop.
'We finish at lunchtimes with our jobs and you can sit there for
hours on end.'
