A&H

Too much too young!

The Referee Store
It must be difficult, to be thrown into that world at such a young age, earning a relatively large amount of money, and having all the pressure on you as well.

But, what can clubs do to help youngsters deal with this? They can’t lock them in at night , or give each one a chaperone 24/7.
 
It must be difficult, to be thrown into that world at such a young age, earning a relatively large amount of money, and having all the pressure on you as well.

But, what can clubs do to help youngsters deal with this? They can’t lock them in at night , or give each one a chaperone 24/7.

There are a lot of things clubs can do:

Greater education on managing money, lifestyle, etc, and have it as part of a mandatory education program in the club
More mentoring programs, within clubs to help the younger players
Independent financial advisors available to all players
Confidential counselling for players if they do have issues - the biggest fears a player has is it getting back to the manager and them thinking they are not right to play the next game
More of the old school at the younger age groups, have the Youth players cleaning the boots of the pros, sweeping out the changing rooms, that installs a hard work culture.
Do more mandatory community elements for the younger players to have to participate in. The biggest thing at the start of some of these issues that spiral out of control is boredom. Players train for a few hours, then have the rest of the day off, help to fill their time up with things that are help to mitigate that.
 
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