70% of minors who practice sports in Bizkaia “suffer violence of some kind”

The initiative has had the collaboration of Athletic players such as Iñaki Williams, Mikel Balenziaga or Nekane Díez, as well as the former rojiblanco soccer player Andoni Goikoetxea, the coach of the women’s first team, Iraia Iturregi, and the international referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea. The campaign consists of the dissemination of several short videos with clear messages of rejection of any type of violence, both physical and verbal, on the playing fields in which everyday situations that are experienced every weekend are reflected.

At present, “70% of the children who practice sports in Bizkaia suffer some type of violence”, according to Rocio Ybarra, head of the Athletic Aterpe child care project. “We have to be very careful with what we want to transmit. A message of unhealthy competitiveness is very dangerous and it is important to convey positive values. At the end of the year we received many complaints related to this issue,” Ybarra highlighted.

‘School of values’

The number, alarming no matter how you look at it, includes any type of aggression, both verbal and physical, that is registered every weekend in the soccer fields of the territory in full view of minors. The most recent case that has come to light, “although there are incidents every day and the committees have imposed more sanctions than in previous seasons,” acknowledges the president of the Biscayan Football Federation, Iñaki Gómez Mardones, took place in Bilbao last February month. A referee who was directing a women’s children’s category match had to expel the fans from the field due to repeated verbal incidents between relatives of the players and the benches.

The ‘This is not your field’ project is not the only program that has been launched by the highest territorial federation to try to eradicate this scourge of football. In fact, it represents one more complement. And it is that, for months, it has also been developing the project ‘School of values’ that includes collaboration with schools and aspects also aimed at parents, monitors and educators. “Part of the objectives are focused on the education of fathers and mothers so that they seek a model of fun and entertainment for their children, always prioritizing respect, equality, camaraderie, sportsmanship and fun,” they pointed out from the Federation.

In this context, at the beginning of this month La Vizcaína organized a colloquium talk at the Bizkaia fronton with the current coach Luis de la Fuente and the former coach of La Roja, Vicente del Bosque as guests and which was attended by more than a thousand kids. teachers and parents concerned about the increase in altercations, especially in lower category games, after the pandemic.

And the thing does not stop there, the territorial Federation also plans to create in 2024 the figure of the delegate in values. This person will go to the football fields to supervise and take note, as if he were a notary, of everything that happens in the matches, both on the pitch and in the stands. All this seeks to raise awareness rather than punish to end violence on soccer fields. “We are going to win this battle,” said the president of La Vizcaína, Iñaki Gómez Mardones.