Tom Farrey, in chapter 4 of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of our Children asserts that unstructured play can benefit children in long term athletic competition more than the methods of youth sports today. He argues that the parents of today’s society are pushing children into highly competitive athletics which aren’t even producing results, compared to other countries with different approaches. On page 86 he introduces the French Football Federation in Clairefontaine which is highly esteemed in producing professional soccer players for France. The Federation practices methods similar to the ideas manifested in Dr. Istvan Balyi’s research which finds that long term benefits reap from later exposure to competition in youth
