Little supervision of child safety. The use of football fields without paying the municipality. Vulnerability to mixing of the underworld and the upper world. These are risks that emerged in the first major study of commercial football schools in the Netherlands. That research was carried out by Utrecht University at the request of the municipality of Amsterdam and shared with the city council on Wednesday evening.
In Amsterdam and surrounding municipalities, 79 football schools were active in recent years, which is more than traditional amateur associations in that region. Football schools are now on the rise across the country, although no one nationwide keeps track of how many are active.
Tutoring institutes
Commercial football schools are a symbol of the commercialization of amateur sports. The football school can be compared to the tutoring institute in education. While the tutoring institute (sometimes) offers HAVO or VWO advice, there are many football schools that say they help children to realize their dream of becoming a professional football player. Sometimes they offer false hope, while parents pay a lot on average for training sessions at the football school – an average of 13 euros per training, compared to less than two euros at an amateur association.
Football schools have been around for about twenty years, but initially there were not many. The fact that so many have been added, especially in the Amsterdam region, can partly be explained by the fact that parents are making increasing demands on football associations. They should not only be ‘cosy’, but also get the most out of a child. Traditional amateur associations, partly due to a lack of volunteers, often have difficulty offering high-quality training. This has created a gap, which commercial football schools have filled.
The researchers at Utrecht University distinguish different types of football schools. Some are primarily focused on having fun and getting kids moving, while other schools work on a semi-professional level with kids building potential pro careers. Football schools often join an already existing amateur club – in Amsterdam almost every amateur association has had some form of cooperation with a football school.
Using fields
Commercial companies are not allowed to participate in competitions of the KNVB football association. Cooperation with an amateur association gives members of a football school the opportunity to play official matches. An additional aspect is that the football schools can use the fields.
That is a problem for the municipality of Amsterdam. It subsidizes the fields strongly to keep sports accessible, while football schools regularly charge large amounts for their training sessions and can thus promote inequality of opportunity.
The researchers from Utrecht University had questionnaires completed by approximately 85 traditional amateur clubs. Most clubs are satisfied with their own cooperation with a football school. But a number of clubs are very dissatisfied with it. Moreover, many administrators have the idea that many football schools (that work with clubs other than their own association) are not good.
“Becomes […] not looking at the kids. Who pays decides. Players who absolutely cannot participate, but who do train at the football school, play in the highest team. Going against it makes no sense, it is not listened to,” writes a club director. Seventy percent of the respondents “(strongly) agree” with the statement that many football schools in Amsterdam have “a dubious reputation”. Three quarters believe that many football schools ‘wrongly create the illusion’ to ensure transfer to professional football organizations.
The report also mentions a risk of undermining. Funders then enter an amateur club via a football school, take a seat on the board and are given the opportunity, for example, to launder money through the club. Moreover, the researchers point out that agreements on social safety – from bullying policy to a Declaration of Behavior for trainers – have been made with associations, but usually not with football schools. There is little supervision on these companies.
How things can go wrong became clear at the end of last year in the case of football school owner Gwendell van R. He was sentenced to three years in prison for exploitation and human trafficking. He had, among other things, accommodated football players from his football academy together with prostitutes in a house. There he filmed sexual acts between the women and the underage boys.
Also read: this article about Gwendell’s football school from R., who, despite suspicions, remained welcome at amateur clubs
‘Combat erosion’
Alderman Simone Kukenheim (D66, Sport) sees the report as a first inventory of the position of football schools in amateur sport. According to her, football schools can make a “very positive contribution” to amateur football, but she also sees the “negative effects”.
For example, she does not want football schools to create a barrier for children to play or continue to play football, because they are sometimes very focused on selection. “I am not against talent development, but we also know that many young children drop out if they are not selected among the best. There must be a balance between recreational sport and selecting the happy few†
In general, Kukenheim thinks that associations with a strong structure can deal well with football schools that join them. She sees a risk of ‘erosion’ in weaker associations, because the football school starts to dominate the association and there is no longer any club feeling.
The municipality of Amsterdam wants to make agreements with football schools and the KNVB about social safety and the rates for renting the fields. Kukenheim: „You see on the fields that the football schools sometimes suppress training sessions of associations. We don’t want that. Football schools are companies that also have to pay a higher rate. We do not want to get rid of the commercial football school, but the association comes first.”
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