Hey, FIFA, Leave Them Kids Alone

FIFA have made both the men's and women's U17s World Cup annual. This is an awful idea.

Written by Lachlan Sherriff

What were you doing when you were sixteen? Studying, partying, developing crushes, gaming, maybe playing sport on the weekends for fun.

Did you ever pack up your entire teenage life for a month and travel to either Qatar or Morocco to focus on nothing but football? No?

Well, that's going to be the life of over 1,000 teenage boys and over 500 teenage girls every year from 2025 to 2029.

FIFA have announced that from 2025, the men's U17s World Cup will be played annually in Qatar for the next five years, while the women's edition will be played annually in Morocco, also from 2025.

And that's not a good idea.

This isn't a hit piece on the U17s World Cup by any means. It's great, or at least it was. The old U17s World Cup was played every two years in order to ensue everyone got the chance to play in an underaged World Cup no matter what year they were born. And in fairness to FIFA, you could argue that's still their main priority.

It certainly is in the terms of teams expansion, which both the men's and women's U17 World Cup's will experience. The men's version will expand from 24 to 48 teams, while the women's edition is expanding from 16 to 24. And I like that. I think it's important to ensure as many kids from as many nations as possible get the opportunity to compete against the world. If anything, my only complaint from this is that the U17's Women's World Cup isn't 32 teams.

The problem here is making it annually. That's a terrible idea.

Kids who grow up as football prospects will never get to experience the same childhood as their peers. It's been like that for ages, and it's fair enough. If you want to pursue a career in this game, you need to invest the time.

But at what point is it too far?

Even the next Lionel Messi or Marta needs a chance to be a kid. By taking kids away from their homes for a month every single year, you're stalling their entire life.

And sure, people will help them catch up on their education. I'm sure playing in a World Cup is a valid excuse to re-schedule a math test. But think of the parties, the sleepovers, the camps, and all the other extra-curricular activities that these children will miss. Don't overlook how important that is.

Not to mention, kids really shouldn't be playing so much intense football, especially in warm countries like Qatar and Morocco. That's a recipe for disaster.

That's another thing that's strange, the location choices. Sure, Qatar and Morocco probably paid a lot of money, and FIFA couldn't turn it down. Whatever.

But a cool niche to the U17s World Cup is that it gave young kids a chance to travel the world and see a part of the world they might not even have known existed.

For context, here's the host of every U17's World Cup. For the men, China, Canada, Scotland, Italy, Japan, Ecuador, Egypt, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Finland, Peru, South Korea, Nigeria, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Chile, India, Brazil and Indonesia. For the women, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Azerbaijan, Costa Rica, Jordan, Uruguay, India and one scheduled in the Dominican Republic next year, the final U17s World Cup before the Qatar and Morocco deals begin.

This gave children from all around the world a chance to see a country that they may never get the chance to visit again. It also gave numerous countries that wouldn't usually get a senior World Cup a chance to invite the football world to their home.

Not only are kids going to play in a World Cup every year, it's going to be in the same location every year. Does that not sound... Repetitive? Will a kid returning to Doha or Rahat for the third straight year really feel as excited as they did the first time around? Are we trying to make kids bored of playing in World Cups? Do you realize how stupid it sounds to even say that out loud?

As mentioned earlier, the U17 World Cup certainly as a place in football. But not like this. It feels like nowadays more and more people in power are forgetting about a famous saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

We've seen news about making the senior World Cups every two years. You'd hope that FIFA aren't using children as guinea pigs to see if double the World Cups is a good idea.

The great Pink Floyd once said to leave them kids alone. FIFA could learn a thing or two from that.