Posted on 06/10/2010 9:14:56 AM PDT by walford
EMC Sports - A new rule meant to prevent blow out scores has angered some parents and participants of a local recreational soccer league.
Prior to the start of the season, the board of directors for the Gloucester Dragons added a new rule to the league's handbook to enforce the pre-existing ruling against having a final score differential of more than five goals.
According to the league handbook, "If at the end of a game there is more than a 5 goal difference in the score, the team that scored over 5 goals will have the results recorded as a loss when the game is recorded at the office."
Near the end of his team's first exhibition game May 20, 17-year-old Kevin Cappon was about to score his team's seventh goal when the referee informed his coach that if they scored another goal, they would lose the game.
Bruce Cappon watched his son put the ball out of bounds and join the rest of the team in passing the ball around until the other team narrowed the scoring gap to 6-2.
While he said he agrees that no one wants to see one team get blown out, Mr. Cappon added that penalizing the winning team is not the way to go about remedying the situation.
"If you bring a racehorse to a ploughing match, you can't blame the animals," he said.
According to Sean Cale, chair of the league's board of directors, the rule is supposed to serve as a gentle reminder to coaches to keep to the five-goal differential rule in mind.
To avoid the problem, the league has suggested some strategies, which include rotating players into other positions, passing the ball more prior to a shot on goal, kicking with the weaker foot and reducing the number of players on the field.
"I think it's a cop out," Mr. Cappon said. "They are pandering to mediocrity."
Mr. Cappon said that the league should be working more on balancing the teams instead of passing the buck onto players and coaches.
Mr. Cale agreed that team balancing is part of the problem, but that there is no easy solution and no way to please everybody.
"(The new rule) is until we find a better way," Mr. Cale said.
Cyril Moukarzel is the coach of Kevin's team. He said that he was not informed of the rule prior to the game.
"Everyone was surprised," Mr. Moukarzel said, describing the scene on the field as "chaotic" while he attempted to find some way to continue play within the rules. He said the referee suggested letting the opposing team score and taking a couple of players off of the field, which he decided against doing.
"It's not called soccer anymore," Mr. Moukarzel said.
Mr. Cale said that the rule change was communicated to coaches during pre-season meetings - without any opposition - as well as in parent communications.
However, he acknowledged that it was possible some coaches may not have been present at those meetings as the league is usually still trying to find volunteers to coach the teams up until a week before the season begins.
Although the spirit of the rule is to foster respect for the opponent, Mr. Moukarzel said that it embarrasses the losing team more to have the winning team not play to their full potential.
As he goes forward with the rest of season, Mr. Moukarzel said that when his team reaches a three-goal lead, he tells them to stop scoring and subs out his stronger players.
Mr. Cappon said he is among a group of parents who are organizing a petition for the league's board of directors to hold a special meeting to repeal the rule.
Mr. Cale said he and the board, which is made up entirely of volunteers, were surprised by the violence of reaction to the rule and wishes that parents had come to staff directly instead of airing their grievances through the media.
"The responses from parents have been quite rude and insulting," he said. "Paying a registration fee doesn't give you the right to abuse staff."
He added that he was disappointed that the fury over the rule has overshadowed the fun elements of the league. For example, in honour of the 2010 World Cup, each team is named after a competing country and has received full replica uniforms.
The Gloucester Dragons also brings in donations to send uniforms and equipment to kids who can't afford them, either in the community or in developing countries.
"Our job as board of directors is that a majority of people have a safe, fair and fun season," said Mr. Cale. "We do it because we love it."
What they ought to do is to call a TKO when one team gets a 5-goal lead.
A favorite lyric from my favorite band!
In our (Washington State) Spring Soccer league for kids, if the score gets too lopsided the rulesn say we are supposed to change up the positions, try to make more passes, etc. Sometimes even that doesn’t work and if we go up by 5 we let the other team have an extra player. Just try to make it more fun for everyone as it is a “fun” league just to keep the kids in practice. (No scores are offically kept for spring).
Even in the real season in the fall, if our team gets ahead by 3 or 4 (depending on how good I think the other team is), I’ll move my players around a bit. Although they are all getting older and pretty much want to stay in “their” positions now. But, it is a good opportunity to have the players see a bit more what is involved with the other positions, and gives them some perspective on what is going on.
I’ll also use it as a time to work on the fundamentals of passing, some “set” plays, etc. So they have a bit more practice on stuff when they play a tough team.
And of course part of it is to not blow out some other team of 12 year olds. Although sometimes that still happens in spite of trying to keep the score down. Having one of our not-so-great players finally progress to the point and gets a chance to score a goal is great to see!
Stupid rule though to have the game be a loss. My kids have no problem in giving another team a leg up (such as an extra player). But to be penalized with a loss.....
Agreed.
We have a saying in our house:
There’s no shame in losing, as long as you don’t act like a loser.
Wish more kids (and their parents & coaches) lived by it.
Nah, I would do like you said. I would have my team decimate their opponents if they could and end up with a 0-12 season or whatever.
Then I would go to the awards ceremony with a big banner that said “0-12 Who won the league?”
Make the losses a sense of pride. The other players, coaches and parents would know who the winner of the league was.
This is nuts. The parents need to form a different league.
That can be hard on a kid, but I also learned the value of perseverance a year later.
As an 11 year-old playing in that same division the following year, we went undefeated and captured the town championship for our age group. One of our victories was a 13-0 win over the team that had beaten us so badly the previous season.
A lot of it was simply the luck of the draw. That championship team had FOUR 10 year-old kids who later went on to become all-state high school players -- one of whom later played for Team USA in the World Cup.
“There’s no shame in losing, as long as you don’t act like a loser.”
That’s a great line, I’ll have to try to remember that!
You have to remember that in Canada, the only young boys who play soccer are the ones who aren’t good enough to play on the girls’ hockey team.
I pulled my petulant son out of a ballgame a few years ago for acting like a spoiled douchebag.
Message was received loud & clear.
Or a team losing by three or four goals late in the game shooting and scoring at the goal they are defending to hand the superior team a loss. If a team is filled with window lickers, the windows will get sloppy. That is not the fault of the superior team.
Paging Diana Moon Glampers.
“The responses from parents have been quite rude and insulting,” he said. “Paying a registration fee doesn’t give you the right to abuse staff.”
But it does give them the right to complain loud and long about abusive rules.
Someone in charge needs to be flogged.
Post of the day.
That’s priceless!
Same way for me. My first year of rec soccer, we were the second worst team. We could always beat the worst team, but lost to everyone else on the bracket.
Then they rejiggered the teams. I ended up traded to a different squad, that was considered a year over year powerhouse. Everyone knew each other except for me, I was the only new addition to the squad. The team were perennial contenders but had fallen short in the years before.
Next season we crushed everyone going into the playoffs before our number one defensmen went down and we got edged out by the eventual champions in the semis.
That was a hard lesson. It took a whole year of effort to get back to that point. But, we did it and hoisted the championship undefeated over the entire season.
But for me the best part was the following year. We were so dominant that they broke up the core of the squad. Once again I was traded to a whole new team, where the coach had apparently requested me. I didn’t really understand why. I was never one of the stars, I just plugged away. Quarterbacked their defense through the season, and we made the playoffs.
We upset everybody along the way, including a team full of all-stars from a neighbouring city that was well favoured. This was supposed to be ‘their’ year as they were the smaller city, and we were the larger one. We beat them to go on and win the championship. That was my last year of playing.
Looking back, I learned so much my first year despite the fact that we only won twice. Having that experience made it all the better when I did go on to a winning team, because I knew what it was like to get hammered.
“We had a 9 run rule in little league. A team with a 9 run lead at halfway was the winner.”
I remember playing little league about 100-years ago. If one team was blowing out the other team, the coach of the losing team would simply forfeit and the game would become a practice.
We didn’t need a rule for this. Times have sure changed.
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