Should Junior Competitive Football be banned?

An Interesting article from Chris Hodgson a coach with over 15 years experience, something for all adults to consider.

My Mum says “Stop being so MESSY” but my Dad EXPECTS me to be MESSI!!!!
A new season has started within Junior Football and it is still evident that there are still many problems within our beloved sport:
1.​Some Coach’s still dictating to kids, urging them on for results
2.​Parents shouting and berating towards the child’s team, urging them for results
3.​Fellow Coach’s phoning each other to mock after a poor result!
4.​Children walking off the pitch……UNHAPPY!!
Is this what Junior Football is all about? If it is then it’s time for change.
TAKE AWAY THE COMPETITIVENESS
Junior Leagues were created to mimic the Adult Form and in my opinion for the interest purely for Adults not children, yes kids love the league but it’s the Adults that dominate them. Kids are becoming more pressurised to perform consistently and as a result the dropout rate from Junior Football is alarming. The fun has obviously gone for them through over-competing and when they eventually do return to playing football, more just end up playing for sub standard teams with sub standard coaching.
Should Junior Leagues be banned? WHY? You must be mental!!! You’re all thinking, but here are some suggestions:
1. Ban competition and introduce learning which is age related, a Player Development Process within Junior Clubs/Soccer Schools etc
2. Kids to be coached at Junior Club/Soccer School through the week/weekend culminating with in house games i.e. 4v4, 7v7
3. Parents also to be educated, to help them understand the requirements to help children develop within the sport.
4. Create Summer Tournaments where all Junior Clubs/Soccer Schools can enter and all the kids can play and show off all their dedicated hard work in a non competitive way
What’s your thoughts so far?………………….
Kids would more than likely stay at one club where the lure of a more successful team would be erased to win things, unless the standard of coaching is poor. How many kids have you lost because of a dad who is success hungry takes his child away to a team that’s winning Trophies? So his child will get noticed hopefully by Pro Academy Scouts so he can boast that his child has made it! All your valuable coaching practice wasted or more probably benefiting another team. How much effort is lost because of this?
Coaches should be educated to coach age related specifics i.e. U6 would be Ball Mastery and different topics through different ages. So if a coach has an U8 team he should be aware of what that age group should be taught for the coming year.
With no Leagues, Junior Clubs would get kids who want to learn to play football and not pushed into it by pushy parents and at the end of the day we want to coach kids who want to be successful in football and hopefully help them achieve this success.
Take Karate for instance my Daughter attends twice a week yet I’ve never seen her train, she’s been going for two years, she is now ready to compete in a competition in which I can watch. She is 8 years old, how many kids who play football have been allowed to train without a parent insight for 2 years??
Kids would play for their respective schools/districts, again no League format (there wasn’t in my day) in school time only, NO PARENTS. Scouts could come and watch like in the old days where if you represented your School/District team it was an achievement unlike today.
How many of these so called Coaches would then drop out of Junior Football? With no competition they would fall by the wayside leaving dedicated Coaches who want to develop and teach Children Football?
It would also give coaches time to become more educated, learning alongside more experienced coaches, instead of a dad passing his FA Level 1, being given 10 kids and let loose with them to teach them what? Nothing but bad habits, or what Hansen and Lineker has told him from Match of the Day! Coach Education is paramount and shouldn’t be looked down upon.
Yes this might take years to implement but surely we must do something to stop this rot!
Introduce competitive Leagues when kids reach the age of 17. What you will have then are kids that have stayed the course, learnt the game, the technique and everything else associated within the sport ready to be unleashed into the Football World with NO FEAR!! Could you imagine the standard of football that will be played, so imagine instead of an U8 League actually being an U17 League, an U9 being an U18 league and so on.
Alot of 17/18 year olds who have played at a high level suddenly have no team to play for as there is no popularity for it and for some of these footballers end up signing for Pub Teams, if the League format starts at U17 and onwards surely its win win. Junior Clubs/Soccer Schools still collecting Subscriptions for coaching the kids over the years and now still receiving Subscriptions for young footballers wanting to play in Leagues from the age of 17 and possibly playing for a number of years. Surely that makes more sense.
What I’m saying is just REVERSE the League Format, Develop first then when they are ready you let them compete instead of having poor little Jimmy crying because his dad shouted at him, calling him an embarrassment for the way he played. When actually Jimmy doesn’t like playing football! But his dad makes him play….Pride can be such an awful thing.
Yes kids will drop out during time, but what you will have at the end of all this are young footballers who WANT football, all of whom have worked hard for THEMSELVES to learn and play football, which is what we need. These kids would become dedicated, hungry footballers who have been taught the aspects and have developed and honed their skills. We English have gone about this the wrong way, making kids compete at such an early age with no education to help them, because let’s face it, Adults are today unwilling to let kids learn for themselves, no mistakes allowed, every performance must be perfect because if not the kid will get lectured on the way home if they haven’t already been subbed for costing the team a goal and this is all just to feed an Adult obsession to compete within football using kids as their prey.
I will leave you with this thought,
Have you ever tried to look at football through a Childs mind?
A CHILD WAKES UP AND SEES A POSTER ON HIS WALL OF HIS IDOL MESSI AND DREAMS ONE DAY OF HOPEFULLY BEING LIKE HIM,
IN THE OTHER ROOM IS HIS/HER DAD WAKING UP EXPECTING HIS CHILD TO PERFORM LIKE MESSI EVERY SATURDAY!
A sad fact but very very true!.