Soccer juniors are the losers on the day

Tomorrow hundreds of would-be Wynton Rufers and Hannah Bromleys will miss the kick-off to their new soccer season because of a fall-out between adults.

It's a sad fact of life that some parents take their personal problems along with their children to Saturday morning sport. Those adults make a spectacle of themselves as they abuse their children, referees and anyone else who gets in their way. It's an international problem and in New Zealand various efforts have been made to counter it, including extensive advertising and even setting up a code of conduct.
Occasionally the victim will be a volunteer referee who gets assaulted by an out- of-control parent, but without fail it is the children who suffer most.
Tomorrow hundreds of would-be Wynton Rufers and Hannah Bromleys will miss the kick-off to their new soccer season because of a fall-out between adults. Look at apportioning blame for the year-old rift between New Zealand Football's Taranaki agent, Central Football, and the rebel Taranaki Soccer competition where ever you like, the bottom line is that it's the children who suffer.
The Taranaki Daily News reported yesterday that Central Football had cancelled games for the first weekend of the season because a major club had withdrawn its teams. Central Football chief John McGifford wouldn't name the club.
The late switch by one club from the nationally approved competition to the rebel one simply underlines the unacceptable situation which clouds junior soccer in the region. New Zealand Football's insistence on pocketing a considerable sum of money from any club which wants to live under its umbrella is a key factor. Indeed, at senior level in the Waikato a Sunday social competition is booming away from that umbrella because players can kick a ball around in a competition where the cost of entering a team is not dissimilar to the subs a senior player pays to register with a Saturday club.
New Zealand Football needs the money. The All Whites' World Cup journey and those of younger teams to junior men's and women's World Cups are the price of success. But it must also be mindful that when it pitches the cut too high, it loses numbers.
The registration fees Central charges, between $165 and $359, compares with the $75 charged by Taranaki Soccer. The latter figure is good for parents, but certainly not good for the game. Aside from reducing a revenue stream which supports the national game, the rebel body also takes youngsters who should be on the first step of the representative ladder out of the equation. And that in a province which last year lost its place in the Central League.

Taranaki Soccer may point to shortcomings in how the game was being administered domestically as further justification for forming a breakaway competition last year. In fact, there may be a dozen good reasons.
But ultimately, Taranaki parents have watched the sport concede a howler of an own goal at a time when the sport is prospering thanks to the high profile of the All Whites and the Phoenix.
Enough is enough: if this nonsense can't be resolved, then it's time for some red cards to be shown.
- Taranaki Daily News