XciteBall is a Youth Football Academy. It has an Under 12’s Junior Team: Safety and Risk Management in Sports Assignment, NTU, Singapore

Case Study

XciteBall is a youth football academy. It has an Under 12’s junior team and an Under 15’s senior team. As its home ground was under refurbishment, it temporarily rented a local primary school’s football field for its training sessions. The usual training time was from 9 am to 11 am.

At 8 am on one of the training days, senior coach, Coach Hazim, called the management of XciteBall to inform them that he was sick and unfit to coach. The management scrambled to find a replacement coach and after 2 hours, Coach John agreed to take over the training session. Coach John was 24 years old but had been coaching part-time with XciteBall for 5 years. He was familiar with the two groups of players as he had assisted Coach Hazim for a few training sessions before.

At the venue, Coach John did a preliminary check and noticed that the grass was damp from the morning dew and a bit overgrown in some sections of the field. Nevertheless, the school’s football field was fit for training purposes although it was the only ¾ of the usual venue size, being only 80 m by 40 m. He also noticed that there was a small sheltered area nearby.

The primary school’s football field was fenced within the school compound. The fence was about 2 m away from one side of the touchlines. Coach John also noticed that several long wooden benches were left on the field. He got some of his players to move all of them to the side along the fence.

Thereafter, Coach John proceeded with the training at 10:30 am, 1.5 hours behind schedule. As he felt pressured to start the training quickly, he combined both the junior and senior teams to train together instead of segregating them as what Coach Hazim had always done. Before he started the training, he warned the players about the presence of the benches at the side of the field. At the same time, he reminded them to drink a lot of water as it was a hot day.

After an hour of non-stop drills and cardio activities, most of the participants were already very tired as it was near noontime. Coach John had the intention to call it a day, but some parents and a few of the senior team members insisted on having the full 2-hour training. Coach John obliged and decided to have a match between the senior and junior teams. As they had only about 1 hour left, he let all the players (15 from each side) play in the field at the same time instead of rotating them. He gave a 5-minute break during the game.

At one point, William Tan (11 years old), intercepted a ball at his own half and dribbled down the field quickly. His opponent, Aqmal (14 years old), ran at full speed towards him in trying to intercept him. Suddenly, Aqmal experienced a leg cramp, slipped onto a patch of damp grass, and crashed into William. Both of them slid out of the field and slammed into one of the long wooden benches at the side of the field.

Both sustained serious injuries. Aqmal was screaming in pain and could not move his right leg; William was lying down motionless.

Coach John was at a shock as he watched the chaotic situation, with some of the players crying and crowding around the casualties. He immediately called for an ambulance and attended to the boys as best as he could as there was no first-aid kit available. He also learned then that Aqmal had been playing with a pair of track shoes as he had forgotten to bring his football boots. He realized that Aqmal suffered an ankle injury similar to the picture shown in Figure 1. Fortunately, there was no fatality in that incident but William incurred a huge medical bill.

William’s father, Mr. Ronald Tan, was very upset and wanted to sue Coach John and Xciteball for damages. XciteBall informed Mr. Tan of a clause (refer to box below) on the indemnity form that he had signed when William joined the club.

Questions

Q1. Use your understanding of torts to discuss the grounds for a negligence claim against Coach John by William’s parent.

Q2. Discuss the defenses that Coach John could use against the claim for damages.

Q3. If you were the judge, what will your judgment be? Explain the reasons for your decision.

Q4. What should Coach John have done immediately after the accident to manage the situation professionally?