And it is almost needless to say: no young footballer will be more successful in controlling the ball, in passing, tackling or in the technique of kicking the goal because his coach has made it a habit for him to yell at him in the ears of his teammates, insult him, or belittle him; And there is not a single boy and girl in any sports association who will improve their skills as a result of humiliation. This is a case of aggressive behavior by coaches towards their trainees who depend on them and see them as a model, behavior according to all studies, this behavior is useless.
- As for the opinion that humiliation can benefit the team: this is also a claim that has no basis in any research, and it expresses, at most, the belief of the coach and the club that such conduct may be justified and benefited. Damage to the player's motivation, his desire to be creative, and team cohesion contribute nothing to the team, but quite the opposite. Ran's description of how knowing that a lost ball will end with a "golem" scream leads him and the rest of the players to quickly pass the ball to one of his friends, which certainly reduces the chances of any initiative and creativity on the part of the players. Ran's description will illustrate his reaction in that game in which, in the face of a missed goal, a winking position at the end of the match: the "washing" he received from his coach, in the form of a curse and shouting for long minutes for having to hit and not kick, certainly did not contribute to his confidence, his playing ability, or the required peace of mind, but only made him want to "go". And even if the club demonstrates cases in which a coach who acted in a bad way "succeeded" (in the sense of accumulating points, apparently), this success is certainly not the result of his behavior, but rather comes despite his behavior.
- The coach also explained: "My job is to produce players for the senior team." When this happened in relation to a certain player but a short time ago, he described, it caused immense pride for the coach. His pride can be understood, of course, but here it should be mentioned: the treatment of the young players as a potential reservoir for supplying players to the senior team, which implies that those who are not good enough will be shouted and humiliated, is also problematic. Tens of thousands of minors play soccer in the various clubs and associations under the supervision of the Association, and only a small percentage of them will reach the ranks of the professional leagues, in Israel or abroad. Most of them, to their surprise and their parents' surprise, will not turn soccer into a profession, and many of them will finish their careers before they reach adulthood. Still, their enormous investment in football should serve as an enriching and positive experience for them, not to leave them on the side of the road as if they had failed. Sport is supposed to serve as an educational and empowering tool for them, to learn rules that are supposed to be of help to them as part of civil society, to improve their self-confidence and to develop respect for the rules of fair play. "Sport," as the renowned sociologist Norbert Elias put it, "involves playing while maintaining social standards on two levels: the rules that apply to the sport itself and the rules that apply to society as a whole."Sport im Zivilisationprozess, 143 (Münster 1982)). These rules will not be learned from treating the young players in a way of humiliation, as if they were nothing more than a pool of future players, as if the question of who will be when they end their career at the club is irrelevant. The society in which we live is strict about human dignity. This should also be maintained in the context of the minor's occupation in sports, and all the more so at the stage of shaping his personality in his youth.
- A clear feature of the club's problematic view of the role of the coach, and its belief that the proper method of teaching and education of a coach should include reprimands, harsh criticism and harsh words, is that it is not possible to identify in the club's position (paragraphs 24-32 of the response) any reference to one basic matter, namely: that it is a matter of coaching minors. Minors, naturally, are not adults. On the other hand, and this too will be forgotten from the club, they have rights, as if they were adults. "A small man is a man, he is a man, he is a man - even if a man is small in size. And a man, even a small man, is entitled to all the rights of a great man."Civil Appeal 6106/92 Anonymous v. Attorney General, Piskei Din 48(2) 833, 846 (1994)). A minor player, certainly one who pays money to the club in order to attend its activities, is not like an adult player, certainly a professional player. The director general of the youth department, in an attempt to convince the father of the rude behavior of a coach towards his player, saw to point out that he himself yelled at players when he was a coach, and further reminded the appellant of the case of the famous Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson, who once angrily threw a shoe at the equally famous player David Beckham in the dressing room. This, apparently, is an example of how even the best of coaches can hurt their players, and there is nothing wrong with that. Needless to say, there is certainly something wrong, and the fact that there are successful coaches who suffer from tantrums does not mean that such behavior should be tolerated. However, here lies the difference between the relationship between a coach or a team and adult and professional players and the relationship between a coach and a minor. Beckham could have dealt with the humiliation by moving to Real Madrid and receiving a salary of millions; A 16-year-old boy at a club who is insulted by his coach can only be silent, process his frustration among himself, and hope that his coach will be replaced by another at the end of the season, which also takes into account the welfare of the minors. Of course, adults and professionals also deserve the protection of the law, but minors need it much more.
On the willingness of the trial to view the continued existence of a minor athlete under the guidance of a humiliating coach as "unreasonable"
- When we discussed the nature of the humiliation by coaches of their underage pupils, its lack of necessity, its lack of hope, and the lack of justifications for the club's grip on its legitimacy under the auspices of the "professional review", we come to the conclusion that it is unreasonable to demand from the minor athlete who was found to have been harmed and actually affected by this behavior Continue to train under the supervision of a coach who does so, and at a club that strengthens the coach's conduct and does not see anything wrong with it.
- In my view, this is also a direct continuation of the Supreme Court's approach in the matter The Other, Physical Violent Education, on the issue of Anonymous. The principles underlying it also apply to the question of the "reasonableness" of obligating an athlete to continue to be educated in an atmosphere of verbal abuse. The court, it was held, is obligated to pay attention to social developments, and to the lessons learned from educational and psychological studies on punishment as a method of education. The court must remember that "beyond the fact that punishment is painful or humiliating as a method of education, it also does not achieve its goals in a real way and causes physical and mental damage to the child, it violates the basic right of the child population in our society to dignity and the integrity of the mind and body," it said (ibid., at paragraph 27). The court must take into account the contemporary legal reference to the status and rights of the child, and in particular to the implications of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
As far as the Basic Law is concerned, as it is clarified there, it protects a person as a person, and a minor is like any other person, even if the matter is forgotten from the memory of the person who is in charge of him. The protection of the welfare of the child, it was emphasized, is one of the great values of the state, both as a Jewish state and as a democratic state (ibid., at paragraph 28).