U.S. Soccer announced on Monday a series of rule changes for its member organizations, including the United States Soccer Association (USSA) and United States Youth Soccer (USYS), to make the sport safer.
The changes are part of a resolution to a 2014 lawsuit filed against U.S. Soccer and include the elimination of all headers for children 10 years old and younger.
Changes also limit the amount of heading allowed in practice for ages 11-13. Additionally, any player suspected of a concussion will be allowed to be substituted out of the game without penalty.
Indiana Soccer, a member of both USSA and USYS, has more than 60,000 youth players, according to its website.
Indiana Soccer is directly affiliated with more than 100 member clubs including Monroe County Youth Soccer, known also as Cutters Soccer Club, which have already taken steps to curb headers from the youth game.
"Cutters has been out in front of this for several years now," says Cutters Soccer Club Director of Coaching and Player Development Tom Berry. "For a long time, we haven't done head-ball training with ages 10 and under. Our kids that are 11-14, we have concussion screening offered to all the players each year."
The rule changes will have no effect on high school soccer, and the IHSAA Commissioner says eliminating headers at the high school level would require more research.
"The knee-jerk reaction is well we're just going to eliminate headers all together in soccer," said Bobby Cox, IHSAA Commissioner. "So what happens when the kid who has played soccer his whole life heads the ball? What are we going to do? Take him out of the game, penalize the team, what are we going to do? I think that anything that fundamentally changes the game is going to have to be researched and discussed carefully before anything is passed to do that."
Complete details of the rule changes will be released in the next 30 days. The rule changes will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2016.
