How clubs are avoiding accusations of the maltreatment of young players

 

 

• Injuries start to wreck Arsenal’s season before it gets going
• Arsenal and Chelsea en route for over 100 yellow cards each this season

By Tony Attwood

There are many ways in which a club can maltreat young players, and the most obvious is that the youngsters can be played too often, and then get told to play through strains and injuries because no one else is available.  Combine that with a lack of proper medical treatment and rest, when they have those injuries, and the youngster’s career is over before it has started.

And it is strange that this is not talked about, because it is not as if the clubs have perfect records with youngsters.  Remember the child sex abuse scandals for example.

Now the argument against such things happening is that it is clearly against the interest of a club to play its young players in such a way that they get injured.  But there are two factors that combine to make it happen.

First, there can be the case of the manager who finds his team in a run of poor form and is fighting to keep his job.  But sitting in the youth ranks is a youngster who has had rave reviews so he orders the coaches to give the youngster a couple of games and get him ready for an appearance in the first team.   However on making that demand the manager is told that the youngster is still recovering from an injury, to which the desperate manager says, “I don’t care how much he’s injured, he’s playing”.

It’s a stupid thing to do, but when a stupid man feels he is in danger  of losing his job there is no limit to his stupidity.  The young player will of course leap at the chance to be played and will assume that the manager knows best – especially if the manager tells him – “if you cry off with some sort of so-called injury, you’ll be out of this club by the weekend.”   So the youngster plays and gets injured.

The second cause arises with a young player who is fit and well, but has not been properly trained to adjust to a move from his current squad to the next squad up, where the players will be older, the game could be faster, and players will quite reasonably not want this young upstart stealing their chance of a move into the first team.

Both situations can happen.   But what then?   A player who should not be playing, is played, and his injury gets worse, or he picks up an extra injury.

That injury could be very long-term, and there is every chance that once the young player has “blown his opportunity” in the eyes of the club, he’s dropped for good and abandoned.

At this point the young player will find it nigh on impossible to get another club, but there is a clear blame on his original club for playing him while injured and exacerbating that injury.   So naturally the parent of the player launches a protest.

What then?  Well first it is increasingly common for the clubs to have a legal expert on their board who announces that any talk of demands for compensation will be thrust aside and could land the parent with a massive legal bill.

But supposing the parent isn’t to be put off that easily.  What then?   Quite probably the club will hold its own internal enquiry that finds that the club has done nothing wrong, and the youngster is let go, career over and quite possibly some on-going medical condition.

Clearly in such circumstances the parent will protest perhaps to the League or the FA but in that case the club will say, “We have looked into the matter and a hearing into the matter with this player but found the club acted properly.”  That hearing was held without the parent present, so no argument is possible.

But why are the clubs so unwilling to look into these affairs?   Much of this goes back to the issue the multiple child sex abuse case that have been brought up.   So many in fact that the newspapers have by and large stopped reporting them.  But also clubs are desperate to keep young players turning up for trials and not have their name blackened by allegations of being “injured for life”.

And the clubs know that he media won’t touch the story for fear of losing their prized access to players for interview and free tickets for matches.  The FA and League then as a matter of course will not investigate because the club has undertaken its own investigation, even if it is in to a different injury!

Now of course I am not saying every club is like this; obviously not.  Nor am I saying that I have evidence that this is how it happened in this or that case.   But these stories circulate, and the fact that the media won’t touch them, just as the media won’t touch the issue of the inconsistency of referees, makes me suspicious.

Maybe of course it is just me, but the fact is that the FA and the League both seem incredibly reluctant to investigate the way clubs are looking after the well-being of their young players once they get an injury.   After all, thee’s always another youngster out there desperate to get a chance.

What we do need is some sort of independent regulator who would not accept the notion that the “medical records have been lost” and “no copy was made”.  Someone who would insist that all medical records must be certified by an indepent medical examiner, and must be kept in duplicate in two separate places.

If you ever hear of such a regulator being appointed, do let me know.  In the meanwhile if you have a young relative who is getting a chance with a club, watch out.  There’s probably no one regulating just how that youngster is treated when he/she gets an injury.   And there is certainly no copy of the medical records being made, just in case they get “lost.”