Kate Emery: Video-assisted technology at Perth junior sports events proves parents have lost the plot

Young people get a lot of stick for being phone junkies, as hooked on their serotonin delivery vehicles as any addict with a needle in their arm. Adults are, of course, hypocrites and parents doubly so. Because if you turn up to any sports carnival, kids’ dance performance or school assembly you’ll see a phone in the paw of every watching parent, all deluded enough to believe they will one day fondly revisit the moment little Billy received his merit certificate or wee Jane nearly pirouetted off the stage. And at some primary school athletics carnivals this year, parents may have noticed filming of a different kind going on at the finish line of their child’s races. These cameras were not capturing a loved one’s performance. They were there to film the race for one simple reason: to settle arguments in the event that parents disputed the result. Yes, the same technology used to disallow goals in professional soccer matches or to confirm a tennis player’s belief that the ball was absolutely outside the line is being used at primary school carnivals because some parents have lost the plot. I am aware of two Perth school sports carnivals this year where the finish lines of Year One races — that would be students aged six and seven — were filmed for this purpose. Six. And. Seven. Years. Old. The idea that a parent might think it both necessary and appropriate to challenge a verdict at their six-year-old’s carnival — and for it to happen often enough that filming is considered a reasonable solution — is bleaker to me than the experience of turning up to the athletics carnival bake sale only to find it’s sold out. Ugly parent behaviour is not new but it is real. We’ve all seen the stories of the teenage umpires abused by parents at youth footy games. The parents brawling on the sidelines of soccer games, role-modelling some pretty interesting behaviour for their bewildered and mortified sprogs. Few people who routinely attend children’s sport will have been lucky enough to avoid the sight of a parent berating their child for a bad catch or a missed pass. (If you haven’t been shocked by another parent’s behaviour on a Saturday morning oval, have you considered the possibility that you are the ugly parent the other mums and dads talk about on the drive home?) That it has come to this — videoing children’s races on the assumption someone is going to dispute the outcome — is the antithesis of what childhood sport should be about. Primary school sports carnivals, especially for the youngest grades, should be about celebrating not just achievement but participation. Most kids who enter a running race will lose. That’s not unfair, that’s just life — and statistics. Competition is healthy but if the only outcome that gets celebrated is a win, how many kids are going to keep showing up? Winning is great but physical exercise has benefits that extend well beyond that first place ribbon or medal. It’s why I rate participation trophies as an appropriate reward for consistency and effort — not the harbinger of end times that some alarmists seem to imagine. Umpires sometimes get it wrong: we see that at every level of sport. Just last month Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime lost to Britain’s top-ranked tennis player, Jack Draper, at the Cincinnati Open after a controversial argument about whether Draper’s winning volley had hit the floor first. Video footage later showed it had but the umpire, who was unable to view a replay, called the point — and ultimately the match — for Draper. The use of a video assistant referee in men’s soccer has created arguably as much controversy as it was intended to avoid, partly because of perceived inconsistent or unfair decisions and partly because it can slow down and drain the game of joy. The Women’s Super League — the English Premier League for women — doesn’t even use VAR. Which rather begs the question: if the world’s most popular soccer league in the world doesn’t need instant replay, why would a primary school? And if Sam Kerr, whose livelihood depends on her on-pitch performance, can take a refereeing call on the chin and carry on without chucking a tantrum, shouldn’t Perth parents be able to do the same?