Response to: ‘Don’t let kids play football’: a killer idea

In a recent  BJSM editorial, it was stated that ‘shutting down youth sports programmes’ is not the answer to injury concerns in contact sport, suggesting there may be unintended consequences, such as increasing sedentary behaviour.1 With physical inactivity a leading cause of mortality, concerns about decreasing participation in physical activity are justified. This issue has even been discussed in a previous editorial in the BJSM .2 There is no evidence, however, to suggest that collision sports (specifically) are necessary to combat sedentary lifestyles of youth. There also continues to be a distinct misunderstanding of what has been called for in regards to the banning of tackling in school rugby, which will now be clarified. In March 2016, the Sport Collision Injury Collective called on the British Government to take action to remove the tackle from rugby in the school environment only. Four main reasons for removing the tackle from …