IT’S A MINI ADVENTURE
Game with inmates helped break down barriers
EMMET SWITZER knows of no greater example of football’s ability to break down barriers and get people talking than of a very unique annual game that he has helped organise.
The President of the Minifootball Association of Ireland and CEO of Inter7s Soccer Leagues, Switzer was in the UAE over the past fortnight at the Minifootball World Cup.
But it’s through his work with the Real Madrid Foundation that he came up with a novel match — between a team of Irish seven-a-side players and a side made up of Spanish prison inmates.
The game, which ran for several years before the Dubliner had to row back on his work due to time constraints, was a popular one for both sides.
He explained to Fitter Happier: “The winners of our Champions League in our Inter7s leagues, in the upper and lower level cups, got a trip to Madrid for three days.
“They got to see a Real Madrid match, got to an Irish bar of course, then there was a typical Spanish menu night.
“We would typically land them in Madrid on a Friday, bring them straight to a stadium, run a four-hour tournament, straight to lunch, then the hotel.
Players
“But on the Monday, the players who could stay on, we would bring 15 to 20 of them, security-checked, into Navalcarnero Prison.
“It’s a mixture of different players from all the teams and we form an 11-a-side team and go into the prison and play the game in there.”
Incredibly, the game would take place without a referee.
Switzer said: “It’s about respecting the system, bringing them into a prison and demonstrating that we can make this work even with apparently the most dangerous people in the world.”
He is a big believer in football being used to combat mental health issues.
The football chief explained: “When you get out onto that pitch, there is not one difference between any person on that pitch. Everybody just wants to play football.
“Suddenly the barriers come down and people talk, and you see the real person out there on the pitch. Football is a great revealer of someone’s personality.
“You get a guy in a Men’s Shed for hours, after an hour, once they are potting plants or turning a lawnmower into a go-kart, whatever it is they do there, when they relax they suddenly start to speak.
“And that’s what football does within a few minutes.
“People go to play football and you see the real person. It’s great to come down to football and to be that person.
“It’s great to have three kids that you love in the house, a gorgeous wife, dogs, whatever, and you just finish work at seven o’clock.”
However, he said football can be used as an escape from everyday life.
He said: “You need it.”
The Inter7s isn’t all about men’s mental health — recently, a women’s league started up.
Switzer continued:
“Every guy needs to get out once, preferably twice, a week to escape the world.
“I love my family, but
I need to get away for an hour or two every week, and that’s okay.
“That escape will often recharge your battery for another couple of days. If you can do it twice or three times a week, all the better.
“You are removing all the angst. You are putting it into the ball.”
They even reach out to Direct Provision communities and offer them the chance to come down for a kickabout.
Switzer said: “We have a cabinet full of boots, so if there is a Direct Provision centre near one of our centres, we will invite them down.
“If they don’t have boots, then we will provide them with a pair.”
Switzer got involved with the Real Madrid Foundation when he was asked to lecture in the Spanish club’s graduate school, University Europea Real Madrid.
He continued: “I got called in to lecture on social sports, fundraising, and it became mental health over time.
“I lectured masters students in a two-week programme every year. I did that for a number of years in Madrid and Bangkok.
“Through the University, they saw what I was doing and I got invited to meet with the Foundation to see how we could develop that for children, and to bring the Real Madrid system back to Ireland and introduce it to social sports to teach kids how to play football without referees.
“You train the teachers and parents to shut up and let the kids resolve it amongst themselves, and to only be there for their safety.
“We were developing that system where there would be respect, nutrition, everything.
“They’d do one hour in a classroom and one hour of sport.
“When I went to that meeting, they realised what I was doing and the conversation came up about the prison.”
Switzer says the school project is currently on hold but he would love to see it taking off as he feels it would benefit students and teachers alike. He added: “If the right person came forward, we could introduce it.
“You’d be amazed at the change in mentality of the younger people as they get to 15, 16 or 17 and they learn how to negotiate things and deal with stuff, and not have other people do it for them.”