Midlake Soccer Club Has No Balls After Banning Them From Sport [Satire]

A Midlake soccer club based in Midlake, Ontario is responsible for this entry into the every kid’s a loser winner department.

Apparently, in an effort to remove something as unhealthy as competition from the sporting world, the Soccer Association of Midlake has issued a ban on the soccer ball itself. That’s right. Not only do they not keep score, they don’t even have a way to score.

Of course, the people behind it see this as a very healthy thing for their youngsters. In a comment to CBC Radio’s This Is That with Pat Kelly and Peter Oldring, spokesperson Helen Dabney-Coyle beamed, “By removing the ball, it’s absolutely impossible to say ‘this team won’ and ‘this team lost’ or ‘this child is better at soccer than that child.'”

“We want our children to grow up learning that sport is not about competition, rather it’s about using your imagination. If you imagine you’re good at soccer, then, you are,” Dabney-Coyle said.

Research psychologist Peggy Drexler in a 2012 column for Huffington Post summed up the opposing side to this logic, stating that what the Midlake soccer club is doing is the “opposite” of helpful to a child’s self-esteem.

“Later on, these are children who may have trouble recognizing their own successes,” Drexler said. “They may have a hard time motivating themselves to work hard, or push to earn what’s theirs. Why would they? They’ve grown accustomed to having victories and praise handed to them with zero to little effort. They have no faith in their own abilities because we’ve never given them reason to. This leaves them feeling empty and ill prepared for life in the ‘real world.'”

We think the folks over at Jeopardy! would agree.

Do you think the Midlake soccer club has lost its collective mind in eliminating the ball from competition?

[Image via ShutterStock]