Many people begin playing sports at a young age, often for fun and to provide an outlet for exercise, activity, and overall engagement. One of the most common and popular sports that many children and teens are introduced to is football. Either by their parents, friends, or even school administration, many teenagers and children alike are introduced to the game, but I wonder if we present the game to kids and youth too young?
To begin, the game is rather intense. While many other games and sports promote and encourage sportsmanship and fairness, football often encourages the exact opposite. Where pushing, shoving, and tackling are often discouraged in other sports, football praises and even urges players to engage in such rough behavior to win the game. In practice, this means that a young player is not only expected to push and shove but is additionally subjected to similar rough behavior by other players.
Moving into my next point, football also provides many possibilities to hurt and cause harm to children. While there is a risk that children can get hurt playing any sport, football offers many more chances for children to sustain injuries by comparison. With the inherent roughness, there is a strong possibility that children could accidentally fall onto one another in a pile-up. Consider the added force of running, the weight of the fall, and the additional weight of the gear worn by the players; falling provides many options for injury and harm.
To combat this, I propose adding an age limit for children to partake in such sports. By adding a minimum age and restriction that a child needs to meet before playing football, we can limit the risk and injury children can sustain when playing football.
