Gary Lineker has criticised pushy parents who shout at their kids from the sidelines at football matches for “instilling fear” – and said they should “shut up and let them play”.
The former England captain said mums and dads who take grassroots matches too seriously are “damaging their children”.
Recalling what he’d seen before, he told the BBC’s Don’t Tell Me The Score podcast: “One picked up his child by the scruff of the neck and shouted, ‘if you play like that you’ll never make the grade’.
“I’m thinking ‘mate, he’ll never make the grade anyway, so just chill, let him enjoy his football’.”
The MOTD presenter said he often found himself standing on the sidelines, listening to parents shouting. “And 99.9% of what they say is wrong, damaging their children,” he said.
“The truth is they’ll reach the level they’ll reach anyway. If you play football or any sport with fear, you will perform less well.”
Last November, The Football Association began a campaign to improve grassroots football by influencing the behaviour of parents, volunteers, coaches and players between seven and 18.
Lineker warned of the dangers of children losing their love for the game if they’re pushed too hard, too early. “What else in life can give you the massive adrenaline rush of sport?” he said. “There’s nothing like it.
“Sport is real-life drama. I know it’s too important to us and we overreact in a way, but imagine being without it, without that emotion.”