Headball ban for children? DFB hesitates, the base acts

On By Garmin Philip

In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland they are banned for children up to the age of 12 and in the USA they are only permitted from the age of 11: We are talking about headers in football. Studies have shown that players who hit the ball with their head for a long time have health disadvantages. In Germany, however, people don’t think much of a ban and go a different way. As the DFB has now reaffirmed, the little ones should be introduced to light play equipment, including balloons, for example, and the number of headers should be kept low up to the B youth level. Does this make sense?

Sports physician Reinsberger contradicts the Glasgow study

A study by the University of Glasgow is usually cited when people talk about health damage from headers. The team around neuropathologist Dr. William Stewart studied 8,000 former Scottish footballers and found that (excluding goalkeepers) they were four times more likely to suffer from dementia than the general population. Headers are expressly a “risk factor” for Stewart.

Dr. sees it differently. Claus Reinsberger. The head of the institute for sports medicine at the University of Paderborn and a member of the medical committee of the DFB says to the LN: “The results of the Glasgow study must be thought through to the end. Despite dementia, the soccer players studied lived longer on average than comparison people who had never played soccer. Also, although football has changed since then, they played a long time ago and no time effects were found. A clear causality to headers cannot be established there.”

Basic training with soft balls or balloons

What cannot be denied, however, is that if a header is executed with the wrong technique, greater forces act on the skull and brain than if the ball is executed with the correct technique. Since headers are already unavoidable from the D youth, when it comes to the big field and later in the men’s area, it makes sense to learn the correct execution at a young age. Reinsberger advises, among other things, to adjust the number of headers to the age up to the D youth. In the E youth, for example, ten headers would then be made – with light play equipment, sufficient regeneration between units and under the supervision of coaches who can correct them

The Schleswig-Holstein Football Association (SHFV) also wants to teach the correct execution of a header at an early stage and trains its coaches accordingly in C and B license courses. In practical terms, this means: “In the G and F youth, you should start with soft balls or balloons. From the U11s, kids could then head with light leather balls,” says Björn Rädel, the sports director at SHFV. In addition, the ball should always be thrown by the trainer during header training so that the trainer has an overview of the frequency and header technique. The distance between the trainer and the child should not be too great so that smaller forces can act.

Youth coaches deliberately avoid header training

Will that also be implemented? The LN asked in the region: Rocco Leeser, sports director and youth director at VfB Lübeck says that the green-whites up to the C youth level do not have any specific header training, that they are currently discussing buying light foam balls to get started. Michael Heinrich from Ratzeburger SV also doesn’t let his E-Juniors practice headers because he always has health aspects in mind. Wolfgang Barg from the G-Youth of SV Eichede also leaves out headers, finding them “not so exciting from a medical point of view”. At TSV Berkenthin there is basically no training in this area in the F youth, says trainer Jörn Engel. Jesse Jansen, Eutin 08 youth trainer, doesn’t practice headers because they just don’t play a big role in the game. And Matthias Kraushaar, coach of the “Bambini” from ATSV Stockelsdorf, is also doing without and points out that the header game will lose relevance from 2024 anyway.

Then the DFB changes. Up to E-Youth, the game will be played on small fields, without a throw-in or a corner. So headers are automatically taken out of play. However, when it comes to the big field and the growing soccer players need the header in competition, it is important to teach the right technique as gently as possible. One thing, however, says Leeser with a smile, is out of the question: “The time of the notorious header pendulum as a training device should finally be over.”

By Andreas Breitenberger

Reference-www.ln-online.de