Football acadamies are a good thing, right? Programs to encourage young talent and help them achieve at the highest level must be something positive, surely? Well, in terms of encouraging improved performance and results, then a well run youth development program is certainly a positive force. But a discussion with this blogger's friend brought up an interesting counter argument - if we want to reduce the prevalence of doping in sport, we need to abandon youth performance schemes. The logic behind it is that by getting kids trained at such a high intensity from such a young age leaves them so highly invested that they will do anything to succeed...even take performance enhancing drugs. It also exposes them at a young age to the kind of environment where they might be introduced to grey areas in the law (the misuse of painkillers, for example) when they are still impressionable - leaving them much more susceptible and accepting of more serious doping misdemeanors.
I'm not convinced it will be possible to keep talented kids away from high performance training programs, but the argument is an interesting one. And certainly, educating young sportsmen and women about the importance of having a level playing field, free from artificial performance enhancers is absolutely critical.
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