PROFESSIONAL football clubs are exploiting the dreams of children as young as 10 by tying them to binding legal agreements and treating them as financial commodities, Scotland's champion of young people's rights has warned.

The Commissioner for Children and Young People issued a damning report and called for significant changes within the country's football establishment after finding that it is riding roughshod over the human rights of 2,500 youngsters aged between 10 and 17 who are registered as youth players with professional sides.

The organisation criticised a system which sees clubs able to block children from playing for school teams and said that in practice, young people could be prevented from playing football altogether if they no longer wished to represent the team they had an agreement with.

Tam Baillie, the Commissioner for Children and Young People, said: "We encourage young people to have dreams and for many, that dream is becoming a footballer. That places a responsibility on football clubs and authorities to ensure they are responsible in how they deal with children and young people.

"However, our findings show that they are not fair-handed in how they deal with young people. They are treating young people as commodities and don't take account of what's in their best interests. They are having their dreams exploited and we need to redress the balance."

Text size Send this article to a friend Print this article

inShare4

Dreams of child footballers being "exploited by professional clubs that view 10-year-olds as financial assets"

Daniel Sanderson

Scottish Political Correspondent

Wednesday 27 May 2015

PROFESSIONAL football clubs are exploiting the dreams of children as young as 10 by tying them to binding legal agreements and treating them as financial commodities, Scotland's champion of young people's rights has warned.

The Commissioner for Children and Young People issued a damning report and called for significant changes within the country's football establishment after finding that it is riding roughshod over the human rights of 2,500 youngsters aged between 10 and 17 who are registered as youth players with professional sides.

The organisation criticised a system which sees clubs able to block children from playing for school teams and said that in practice, young people could be prevented from playing football altogether if they no longer wished to represent the team they had an agreement with.

Tam Baillie, the Commissioner for Children and Young People, said: "We encourage young people to have dreams and for many, that dream is becoming a footballer. That places a responsibility on football clubs and authorities to ensure they are responsible in how they deal with children and young people.

"However, our findings show that they are not fair-handed in how they deal with young people. They are treating young people as commodities and don't take account of what's in their best interests. They are having their dreams exploited and we need to redress the balance."

Under the rules, 10 to 14-year-olds see their registrations lapse at the end of each season. However, if they move on having turned down a new agreement, their new club is obliged to pay "training costs" to their previous side, which they may not be keen to do, meaning children that could be of primary school age make decisions that "they may be tied to throughout their youth football years".

The system is even more problematic once a child reaches 15, when a club can decide to extend a registration even against a player's will. It means that a teenager could be tied into a three-year registration with the professional outfit retaining the power to ban them from playing for even school or amateur teams.

If the teenager no longer wanted to play for the professional side, "the only option for them is to withdraw from playing football altogether", it was found.

While parents or guardians must sign agreements for under-16s, doubts have been raised as to whether they understood the implications. Players who sign youth agreements are obliged to "adhere to the club's code of conduct and rules" which can be large documents full of legal terms and binding clauses.

It is understood that professional sides have resisted changes to the rules, fearing that after training a player for several years, they may lose them to a rival club that may go on to sell them for millions of pounds once they become adults.

Mr Baillie said that while he could understand the concern, it was essential that a system of compensation that "doesn't penalise young people" is agreed.

The report was commissioned by Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee, after the issue was highlighted by the Real Grassroots campaign group which argued that current arrangements breach the Scottish law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

MSP John Pentland, convener of the Public Petitions Committee, said "serious and fundamental concerns" about the human rights of youth players had been raised.

He added: "From my own point of view, currently we have a situation where professional football players who are protected by agents can easily extricate themselves from a contract, while young players aged 16 and under, who may be dazzled by an SFA offer can only rely on their parents for advice. If the SFA is to salvage its reputation it must learn that a child is not a mere package of football skills, but a fully rounded individual."

A spokesman for the SFA said it had worked with Real Grassroots to make changes, including around reimbursement of training costs.

He added: "We will continue to work closely with them and other bodies to improve the regulations where possible."