Football was and still is one of the greatest sports among many and it has brought happiness and impacted Somali youth positively by playing it. It improves and allows youth to get into shape (fitness), it may bring people to cooperate, teach them leadership skills, and challenge them to master time management. But that is all when you play it. As everything is not greener on the other side, in the context of Somali youth, watching sports, especially football, has undesirably affected youth. Watching football matches unlimitedly wastes time, lowers work performance, diminishes academic performance, and can cause health issues.

The Negative Side of Football

Somali, mostly, youth either play or watch football matches. Thus, my focus here is on those who watch football matches, local and international. The following are the negative impacts of watching football matches on youth:

1. Lowers Performance at the Workplace

There is a timeline difference in match days. So if you are an employee and start watching football at midnight you will sleep late and this will affect your workplace performance.

2. Time-Consuming

Sometimes you may wonder why our 24 hours are like 24 minutes, you wonder why youths don’t accomplish some daily goals they set for themselves. I am not a football fan, but I have friends who excessively like football and watch it daily. In my observation and day-to-day witness of young people watching a football match, I think they fail to achieve some of their daily goals because they spend too much time watching football. It is time-consuming to watch sports of all kinds, especially football.

3. Diminish Academic Performance

Watching football matches limited less can cause young people and teenagers who are in schools and universities to underperform academically. As mentioned above, watching football is a waste of time and if time is wasted, there will be no time to read, learn and study which leads to underachieving in educational institutions.

4. Causes Health Problems

Watching football on late-nights can cause less sleep for young people and everyone watching it. Remarkably, insufficient sleep has been linked to the development of several chronic diseases and conditions, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression. Therefore, insufficient sleep can cause serious health problems such as: aging your skin, forgetfulness, accidents, heart attack, and Loss of memory.

5. Leads to Miss Prayers (Salad)

Muslim young people are supposed to pray 5 times a day and are strongly enjoined to pray these prayers at mosques (masjids) in congregations. Notably, sometimes youth miss these prayers because the football match continues for up to an hour and a half with possible extra time.

6. Cultural Effects of Watching Football Match

Watching sports in particular football can culturally impact youth negatively as watching it excessively causes the youth to imitate the players’ behaviors and cultures which are not consistent with the Islamic culture, beliefs, and principles. 

Conclusions

Watching football for fun in free or leisure time is okay, but young people should avoid watching football matches seriously. If watching football hinders young people’s development, academic performance, in workforce performance, and causes serious diseases to the youths it is not worth spending too much time watching it. As Muslims, it also causes us to miss important prayers during match hours. For the betterment of our temporal and eternal worlds, I recommend that youth play and watch a football match with care and stop wasting time with nonsensical things including all sports. Our role in this earthly world is beyond watching worthless TV channels and spending our precious time on un-rewarding things.