Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Schools Football InitiativeThis scheme is sponsored by the drink ‘Yazoo’ and sports clothing company ‘Umbro’. The leaflet features a glowing testimonial from John Terry.
In return for a coach coming in to school children are expected to take home a sponsorship form with the carrot that 50% would go to the school, 20% would pay for ‘Umbro’ footballs and 30% for ‘reinvesting’ in SFI.
There are so many fund raising schemes from charities that you could send something home every week. Some children are fairly blunt, ‘Sir, my Mum and Dad haven’t got any money.’
On the day, one trainer arrived in school with loads of balls, so to speak, the session for every class lasted about half an hour, nothing special most teachers could do the same thing if they had… more balls. Some of our children who attend other football coaching events thought it was, ‘rubbish’, I didn’t want to concur in public.
I’m not expecting the Football Association to organise coaching in schools, they can’t even appoint a team manager with any degree of tactical competence, only when Belgium was trashed did they realise that their away support had become a travel agency for Column 88 – they were probably too busy ‘socialising’ with their secretaries to notice.
Besides that the FA doesn’t have any money, especially after paying off Sven. By contrast the latest Premiership TV deal with Sky is worth £2.7 billion (Christiano Ronaldo’s pay negotiations are starting at £140,000 a week) is there no chance of spending a few pounds on school sport? Who knows they might even discover a decent striker.
If multi-million companies want to provide coaches for schools I don’t have a problem. But please don’t ask our children for ‘sponsorship’ – it’s a con.
Labels: PE and Health
