Wi-fi banned for Premier League team Southampton amid reports of 13-hour-a-day Fortnite addiction

Southampton Manager Ralph Hasenhuttl pictured after a game against Tottenham on March 9. His tightly controlled team is 16th in the Premier League, just points clear of the drop zone. Photo / Getty.

The boss of an English Premier League team has revealed he has wi-fi blocked when his team says at hotels - the better to stop his players gaming until the wee hours.

Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl compares "addictive" video games to alcohol or drugs.

Hasenhuttl revelation follows an un-named English footballer telling The Sun that sometimes he would play popular video game Fortnite for up to 13 hours a day.

"It's something you have to force actively against and I will do this," Hasenhuttl said.

"I did it in my last club. We had also problems with players - they were playing until three o'clock in the morning before a game.

"You have to help protect them because it's not a small problem. If you are honest it's the same as alcoholism or getting addicted to drugs.

"To protect them means helping them not to spend so much time there. We block the wi-fi in the hotel, for example, in the evening so they can't play any more."

The Austrian coach's strict regime has yet to pay dividends. Southampton is sitting 16th in the Premier League, just two points clear of relegation.

Cellphone breaks for social media fix

Hasenhuttl's comments come on the heels of a move by a US NFL coach to give his players "cellphone breaks" so they could satisfy their need for a constant social media fix.

Kliff Kingsbury, the Arizona Cardinals' first-year coach, said he's going to give players the social media time-outs during team meetings in the week leading up to game day.

"They're itching to get to those things," he said (via ESPN) Tuesday during the NFL owners' meetings in Arizona.

Kingsbury hopes to cut down on distractions with the breaks, which he gave players when he was coaching at Texas Tech. The breaks he'll give his pro players, whose average age is 25, will come every 20-30 minutes.

"You start to see kind of hands twitching and legs shaking, and you know they need to get that social media fix," he said, "so we'll let them hop over there and then get back in the meeting and refocus."