Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Nanny State ideas creep into kids soccer

This may be about the dumbest thing that I have read in a long time.

An Ottawa children’s soccer league has introduced a rule that says any team that wins a game by more than five points will lose by default. In the name of making things 'fair' they are going to actually make the kids on the weaker teams more embarrassed by forcing other teams to pity them by holding back and not try their hardest.

In other words, treat the lesser team as if they are not even worthy of your best efforts.

WTG Gloucester Dragons Recreational Soccer league. This will sure raise the self esteem of all the players involved.

How humiliating; for both sides.


h/t The National Post.


Updated: My wife had a very interesting comment on this. If a team is down a couple of goals they now could try to lose on purpose and get the win. Example: Down 4 goals with seconds remaining, just pop one into your own net and win the game!

Have this happen a couple of times and you can bet this goofy rule would be changed.


Update June 11, 2010. Common sense wins out! They have now dropped this silly rule change in exchange for calling the game if the score gets too lopsided but allowing teams to continue to play if they desire.

11 comments:

Big Red Magnum said...

Sports without competition, what a concept.
Sounds like Liberal economic policy.

Anonymous said...

Or alternately, the team that's ahead can score goals on themselves to keep the margin "correct".

I have this vision of the league standings having a team with 0 wins, 15 losses, 150 goals for, 0 goals against - in last place of course.

Anonymous said...

What a load.............

Richard said...

Once a five-goal cushion is established, it now becomes a competition for who can score the most own goals.
I don't think they've thought this one through.
They had the spokesman from the club on am640 this morning. Sounds like a bright enough guy, but he still hasn't thought of having the coaches rate the kidas at the end of the year, for next years draw.

Anonymous said...

Come to think of it, why wait for the 5 goal cushion?

Right from the opening whistel start scoring on yourself. First one to 6 wins!

Then you end up with the bizzare situation of having to vigorously defend your opponent's goal.

Ardvark said...

Goals scored in the oppositions net count against you.

I like it!

Kit said...

What a completely asinine rule! What bullshit! What does that teach a kid? In University and you're going to get a 4.3 grade average - better fail a couple of courses so that the others in your class feel better... and later in life when your working at that big city job and you're going to make a fair and tidy profit for the company, better make some bad decisions and lose money so we can be fair to our competitors... This rule was written by parents who are federal bureaucrats - no other explanation is possible.

Ardvark said...

Mess 'em up while they are young and you have a Liberal/NDP voter for life.

Anonymous said...

Breeding a group of Ottawa girly-men

Anonymous said...

A perfect example of the Tall Poppy syndrome.

Anonymous said...

Actually it is not as bad as it seems. An organizer was on the radio yesterday and explained the losing team did not get points as if they had won. The winning team did forfeit the points.
It appears to be in response to some coaches who deliberately ran up the score. The league felt something stronger than a letter of reprimand was necessary.
Not sure if I like the approach but sportsmanship does work both ways - people need to be gracious in winning as well as losing.