Football in Playa Blanca

A few weeks ago, Gary and Scotty set up Playa Blanca FC with a view to hopefully joining a league later in the year. Gary and Scotty are both former professional players and professional coaches. They run the the soccer school at the Princess Yaiza.

It’s been really well received in Playa Blanca, and has had much interest and plenty of people turning up for the twice weekly training.

The team is open to all nationalities and all ages, it’s a fantastic idea – well it was until the powers that be at the Yaiza stadium got involved. Recently they decided to set a set of conditions that limit the membership. For some reason they decided that in future there must be no under 19′s (19 seems a strange number under any circumstances), which immediately excluded three of the younger guys – my son included. They have also limited the number allowed to train as well as, effectively, establishing a ‘dress code’. The reasoning does not appear to have been explained – and I can’t imagine this is a language problem as the ‘team’ is approximately split 60% Spanish and 40% English.

It seems very wrong to me for the following reasons

• There is little enough for the younger generation to do here so one would have thought their inclusion to be a good thing
• This team is promoting harmony amongst the rich mix of nationalities in Playa Blanca, as well as between generations
• I thought that most European governments are working very much towards inclusion in sports – these restriction have had quite the opposite effect
• Until now I would have assumed the staff at the facility would welcome its use for all the above reasons – after all, that’s what the facility, and they themselves, are there for!

I wonder if the Municipality are aware of this exclusive approach applied by it’s ‘employees?

I for one, would like to know the exact reason why they deem it necessary to exclude my son and his friends? And, I’m sure Gary and Scotty would be interested to hear the reasoning behind these seemingly unreasonable restrictions.

To add insult to injury – on the night that Gary was told of these restrictions the coaches of the under 18 Spanish team which was to follow them onto the pitch videoed the training session led by Gary. The, yes you guessed, it ran through the exact training session with their team.

Draw your own conclusions…!

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