Soccer Persuasive Essay

In American Soccer, there was a recently implemented rule for the heading age of adolescents. The official rule is no players under the age of ten are never allowed to head the ball, and then ages eleven through thirteen are allowed “limited heading”. But, during a real game no players under the age of thirteen are allowed to head the ball. This rule, that is only for U.S soccer, is a rule that should be changed back to allowing all ages to head the ball. This should happen for three reasons; this rule is hurting them more than it’s helping them, soccer is already a physical sport and there are already risks involved in playing the sport, and the last reason is that there is not enough evidence to completely ban heading for younger kids. Everyone who’s ever player soccer learned to head the ball correctly at a younger age, and everyone who plays competitively is expected to know how to head the ball properly and apply it to the game by at least twelve. Dr. William P. Meehan, director of the Sports Concussion Clinic and Director of Brain Injury Research for the Brain Injury Program at Children's Hospital Boston had this to say about waiting for kids to develop more to head the ball;

“The study, by the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Sports Medicine and Fitness Executive Committee, is reported in the February 2010 issue of the journal Pediatrics. The research contradicts the findings of earlier studies, including one by researchers at Florida Tech in 2003, which suggested that heading in soccer may result in the short term in weaker mental performance, including a decline in cognitive function, difficulty in verbal learning, planning and maintaining attention and reduced information processing