Prisoners are shunning jail soccer groups – as they’re too afraid of being tackled
Prisoners are becoming increasingly worried for their safety when they play football and bosses at HMP Swaleside in Kent believes it’s because of the prevalence of drugs and the consequent debt
Prison chiefs say they are struggling to put together a jail football team – because lags are ’too scared’ of being tackled.
Scores of inmates at the 1,100-capacity HMP Swaleside in Kent used to play regular 11-a-side games, but now the jail struggles to get even 10 blokes to play in a five-a-side. A report into the jail found that the reason for the sudden slump in popularity was that top dog lags used the footy matches to ‘exact revenge’ on those who owed them money or had ‘done them a bad turn’.
The report from the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) stated that Championship side Millwall – notorious for its football hooligans – taught lags how to play the beautiful game.
Inspectors, however, found that the game was far from ‘beautiful’ – which commentator Stuart Hall famously called it in 1958 – as it led to reprisal attacks. It got so bad, with red card tackles flying in so often, that the 50-60+ players soon became less than 10.
The most recent report stated: “An accredited course is run by Millwall Football Club. However, during 2025, attendance has declined for football.
“Prisoners are increasingly worried for their personal safety when they mix. Gym staff note that, previously, it was easy to get 22 prisoners to sign up for football, with the next 22 added to the reserve list for the next time.
“Now it is a struggle to get enough players for five-a-side.
“This is an indictment of the prevalence of drugs and the consequent debt in Swaleside, in the Board’s view.”
A prison source said that footy games in prison were almost always ‘not for the squeamish’, but that it was just taken as part of the game.
He said, however, that ‘targeted attacks’ were different, adding: “If you are in debt or have crossed the wrong person, you’re not going to put yourself in a position where you can get booted around for 90 minutes.
“The problem at this jail seems to be simply that drug debt and bad blood has been allowed to build up and fester – leaving most of the inmates too scared to play a game of football.”
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