Football connects communities but can pull them apart if governed carelessly | Cath Bishop

The fight for the soul of football isn’t just happening in the offices of Uefa and Fifa, it’s taking place on pitches much closer to home. At the weekend games of football for 750 children aged five to six in Scotland were cancelled because of severe behavioural issues within the ironically named “Fun 4s” programme. Seventy-two red cards were handed out in the first week of the season.

Accounts describe adults displaying aggression, intimidation and head-butting as if it’s the “wild west”. This isn’t just a Scottish problem. Contacts I speak to in different roles around football confirm and almost accept that “youth football is atrocious”.

This should be sounding major alarm bells, for the consequences go way beyond the pitch. The existing disciplinary systems and PR campaigns are not nearly enough to address and change the situation. It’s incredibly selfish and socially corrosive for an adult to intervene and spoil the experience of kids playing football.

There are no good outcomes. For the children, they learn to associate football, and potentially life more broadly, with violence and aggression. They are robbed of a space to be free, to play and develop and have fun alongside their friends.

They see adults role-modelling a dog-eat-dog, win-at-all-costs mentality that is not laying the foundations for them to become good team players, school pupils or later civic-minded citizens. It also prevents young people from developing a love of being active and working positively in a team, perhaps one of the most powerful elements for a healthy life. It’s not a great way to develop parenting skills, either.

There is no shortage of evidence about how important it is – whether you are trying to develop skilful football players or healthy young people – that children need space to play, try stuff out and thrive. We also know that it’s what children want from sport. Research by Amanda Visek at the Milken Institute of Public Health at George Washington University, confirms that when it comes to organised sport, kids just want to have fun.