Using sport to tackle social issues among disadvantaged young people could save billions of pounds every year, says The Sported Foundation, after it commissioned a research project looking into tackling the problem.

The project, which was carried out over a period of three years, discovered that sport for development had the greatest impact on alcohol and drug misuse, decreasing the risk by 19 per cent and the likelihood of a youngster taking part in crime or anti-social behaviour was also reduced by 15 per cent.

The study looked at around 4,000 sport for development projects across the UK and discovered that using sport to tackle social issues saw an increase in both educational attainment and attendance.

Also discovered was that using sport to tackle social issues saw a 14 per cent increase in health and well being as well as saving £4,714 per young person per year.

According to statistics there are 10 million young people living in the UK with around 2.5 million living in areas of deprivation, meaning the resulting savings if the scheme were rolled out across the UK, could potentially be billions of pounds.

To read the full report click here.