Faced with the accumulation of violence from parents towards football educators, Yacine Hamened, former educator, calls for strong measures to be taken and all responsibilities to be judged.
Published
Reading time: 5 min
:quality(50)/2023/12/20/000-343v33y-6582e9771b6e0592577191.jpg)
Threats with a knife, verbal attacks from parents… For several days, the world of amateur football has been shaken by an accumulation of violent behavior towards educators, on the part of parents. Yacine Hamened, former educator in amateur clubs, and author of the book Offsides in French football (Talent Sport editions)returns to this worrying phenomenon and points to several responsible parties.
Franceinfo: sport: Several acts of violence against educators, including threats with a knife, have recently been reported. Is this a new phenomenon?
Yacine Hamened : The phenomenon is not new. But I have the impression that the concentration on a short period of all these violent events is new. This is taking on proportions in terms of violent acts with weapons or blows, which are becoming extremely worrying. Before, this type of act took place more widely in big clubs. Now it’s everywhere, even in more family clubs.
We talk a lot about the “Mbappé project”, which consists of making your child the next nugget of French football. Is he a catalyst for this violence?
Obviously this famous “Mbappé project” is an accelerator of this violence because we hear about staggering figures on salaries. But I think that’s just one of the reasons why.
We stigmatize parents – rightly so – because no one deserves to be threatened with a knife. But they are not the only ones responsible. If they behave like this, it is because at some point they were allowed to do so.
Who are you referring to?
Educators are also in this search for the future Kylian Mbappé. They have the objective of being the advisor of this new player. You should know that they are paid more or less 200 euros per month. As long as they do not earn their living, there will be this relationship with the children and parents of kingmaker or agent.
But you also have the clubs and the federation which are guilty of this laxity. When parents behave badly, clubs do not necessarily take sanctions. For what ? One, they lose the player. Two, they lose the license. Three, sometimes he’s a city kid. And four, in any case we know that he will find a club.
Today, to attract a good player, educators and clubs promise a lot of things: it can range from free licenses, equipment but also – and above all – contacts with professional clubs. We promise that we will send them for trials, that we have entries into training clubs…
Should we not fundamentally review the system? How ?
An 11-year-old child can change clubs two or three times during the year, this is the responsibility of the French Football Federation (FFF). When a child signs for U9 or U11 in a club in September, there is no reason – except for family or school reasons – for him to go to another club in October or November because he is not playing and let him do the same thing in January.
The FFF must block all of this. It’s a little artificial at the start, but I think we will create a context which allows us to have a little more perspective, to find dialogue between parents and educators.
“The clubs must also create solidarity. They must refuse to take a player whose parents have been violent with the educators and who leaves one club to go to another.”
Yacine Hamened, former educatorat franceinfo: sport
I’m not sure everyone wants these changes. Because French football trains players, exports them, is a double world champion (1998, 2018)…
Why punish children when they are the first victims of their parents’ behavior?
Unfortunately we cannot prohibit a parent from coming to a stadium, it is a public place. We would have to file a complaint, wait for a judgment, have people who can control the entries, it’s too complicated. The only way to put pressure on parents is this: if there is an attack in November, your child will no longer play until June. That would perhaps allow us not to go so far and to dialogue rather than descend into violence.
It’s not the ideal solution, but you have to take responsibility. We cannot let parents threaten or attack educators. And what’s more, we set a bad example for the child. Instead of letting him work and telling him: “You need to work harder.”we show him that as soon as things are hard, violence solves everything.
Clubs have made the decision to suspend matches or have children play behind closed doors… Are these effective solutions?
This is the beginning of a solution because it will bring back some calm. But it’s a short-term solution. We were talking about sanctions against children, but here we also sanction parents who behave well. As long as there is no drama, we have the impression that we are not aware of the situation. It is by not making a decision, and by making one when there is a tragedy, that it is unfair. If tomorrow an educator dies after violence, strong decisions will be made and they will be bad decisions.
Is the status of educator, one who learns sport but also has an educational function, still as respected?
This is a figure that is no longer as strong. Today, you have so many football shows, so many football discussions, that many parents think they have mastered all the elements. And so they have an opinion about the educator. We can easily draw a parallel with teachers. Teachers are attacked, they are told how they should grade students… Everything is called into question: the status of the teacher, the educator… The educator no longer has this “big brother” figure too. It is now a relationship solely about profession and performance, there are no more exchanges.