Coaches call for answers over youth game as parents and youngsters are left in cold
THE heads of Scotland’s nine elite academy clubs are demanding Holyrood gives Hampden a clear commitment to kickstarting kids’ football.
The youth game has been largely ignored in government briefings about sport as lockdown measures begin to ease. And there is a real fear a generation of kids could be lost after two lengthy periods of Covid-induced inactivity.
Club Academy Scotland’s ‘elite’ sides – Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee United, Hamilton, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Hibs and Rangers – insist there is no evidence that youngsters’ outdoor sports activities are responsible for coronavirus transmission.
United academy head Andy Goldie has revealed that clubs have lobbied the SFA/SPFL Joint Response Group detailing the damage being done by government inaction and demanding they are given a timeline for football at all ages to return.
He said: “It’s ridiculous. This isn’t a performancerelated issue. The last thing on my mind at the moment is creating a future generation of Scottish footballers.
“Kids need this as part of their education and support network. I have serious concerns. Putting the performance aspect to one side, we have young people who have football as part of their daily lives.
“It’s part of who they are and that’s been stripped away. They don’t have the social interaction of playing with friends. The first lockdown, all my staff were on furlough, other than parttime staff who volunteered and I found it alarming the number of individual calls I was having with parents and players, just asking for that wee bit of support. “They were looking to have their minds put at ease and it’s very difficult when you can’t give them clarity of timelines about getting back to playing. “The most important thing was for them to understand that we were there for them but it’s alarming. In terms of this lockdown, the same concerns are coming back for everyone.
“Kids are struggling. They haven’t had school and there’s no traditional routine that they have experienced throughout their whole lives so far.
“It’s great that we can have Zooms with Andy Robertson, Billy Gilmour and so on, analysis and education workshops with the players but we will never ever be able to replicate the reasons why they play football.
“The love of the game, the competitive element, you can’t replicate that online.”
Goldie’s frustration stems from a lack of clarity – and the inability to give parents and players any kind of encouragement.
He told Record Sport: “It’s hard for us to understand why we can’t return, particularly when kids are going to be back in the
FRUSTRATED Andy Goldie classroom, indoors. We keep hearing there’s an evidencebased, data driven approach to the pathway out of lockdown, but articles have been published in the last couple of days to say that there’s not been a single case of Covid transmission in outdoor sports for kids, and that’s not just football.
“I don’t understand where the data is coming from for them to push grassroots, youth and academy football so far down the line that it’s just not being considered for a return at this moment.
“We are not getting any answers back and if we listen to our young players and their families, they need some certainty in their lives.
“They need to see the light at the end of the tunnel and we can’t keep palming them off by saying ‘we hope to be back in April.’
“We need some answers and if the dates for a return don’t meet our expectations, we have to find out why.
“Why are young kids in Scotland being punished when there is no data or evidence to back up that outdoor sport is a concern for the transmission of Covid?
“If you’re standing beside each other for 15 minutes during a training session, it’s an issue with the coaching, not Covid!”
A further source of frustration is that elite academies have full-time under-18 players on their books – and while part-time clubs in League One, Two and SWPL have been allowed back to training with a view to resuming their campaigns, the academies have been left in limbo.
Goldie said: “The nine elite clubs have more full time players in Under-18 football than League One, League Two and the women’s league combined and yet there is nobody on the JRG representing Club Academy Scotland, youth football or grassroots football.
“The nine heads of academy have been meeting and have got a paper together that has now been submitted to the JRG for the return of all football, which will hopefully be in the coming weeks.
“We’ll continue to work closely with the SFA to hopefully influence the Scottish government to bring these timelines forward and allow us to get our kids back on the grass as quickly as possible.
“We eventually qualify for a major competition with players who have come through this academy system and it doesn’t appear that anybody is really fighting to keep that going.”