While senior football is blooming many questions are being asked about youth football.

Parents of these youngsters are concerned about the league starting so late (in comparison to previous years) resulting in what they are calling – too much idle time.

However, the Bermuda Football Association defend their plan and position by stressing that this implementation is an effort to raise the standard of school and youth football island wide.

The question is do they have it right or wrong? In an effort to get a broad range of feedback I talked with a player, a parent, a coach and Derek Broadly (BFA technical director).

The Bermuda Football Association in an effort to eradicate the problem of school v club football has pushed back the start of youth football until January. The reasoning behind this is to ensure that club football doesn't interfere with school football.

In the past there were some children who would not play school football because their club coaches would tell them not to and to come training with the club and vice versa.

Personally, being a coach at Whitney Middle School we never really experienced children not playing for the school because they love football so much and want to play as much as possible. However, I know that it did exist at other schools.

The following are responses I received from various people on the decision to delay youth football until January.

Player: "Yes I miss football a lot; I really am bored on weekends and have to find things to keep myself busy. To pass time I hang out with my cousins, but I am trying to find another sport to play to keep me busy."

Duan Leverock (parent): "From a parent's perspective I have mixed feelings about putting the football back to January.

"On one hand, since my son plays more than one sport, my free time belongs to him.

"On the other hand, the season being pushed back to January allows me a break from that. With respect to my son, he is bored and just wants to play.

"He is home schooled, so the school football benefit which this initiative targets does not affect him or other students like him. We are used to the way things were always done and change is very hard, but if we want to see some type of improvement and not be stagnant we must try new things.

"I am keeping an open mind and plan to reserve my judgment on this initiative until it is tried and it either succeeds or fails."

Richard Todd (St. George's head coach): "I think there has been an assumption that the schools programmes would adequately fill the void for player development during this time period that the BFA youth leagues are not operating.

"The schools are challenged with their resources of coaching expertise and it is hit and miss between school programmes. Additionally the limitations of the number of teams a school can field are leaving some youth players with no games, as they are unable to make the school teams.

"For example at Dellwood I had 34 players who tried out for the under-13 boys team and was forced to make selection cuts as we cannot facilitate adequate game time to so many players on the one team we sponsor in the age group.

"Those not selected to the team are left to participate in lunchtime play. The other challenges for clubs are going to be to keep the interest of the multi-sport athlete, as some may focus on other sports in the absence of formal games until January.

"The social issues we are facing in the country have been well documented and concerns already expressed about the need to keep our youth busy and engaged.

"The biggest concern I have seems to be the shift of taking primary responsibility of player development to the national level as opposed to the club level.

"I say this because while league play has been put on hold and club practices reduced during these fall months, the national academy training schedule has been established and has become the focus for those selected in the place of club training.

"Additionally a conflict between school football and national academy training days and times exist.

"Our national teams do not play a regular schedule of games so the question I ask is, are we weakening the club programmes to place more focus on national team development, and is this sustainable?

"If we focus on helping the clubs to become better structured, organised, and help improve their programmes, staffing, resources and infrastructure the product we get at the national level would be greater. This grass roots focus would ensure we are growing our "base" and development of the player pool on the Island."

Derek Broadly (BFA technical director): "There really has not been much of a change. Kids used to train twice a week for their school and two or three times for their clubs, plus play once during the week for their school and on a Saturday for their club.

"What we have asked the clubs to do is sacrifice one of their weekly sessions and train on a Saturday to substitute for the game.

"In order to improve our standards so that the kids can play at a higher level they have to train and gain the fundamentals first. When coaches run out of ideas all they want to do is play games.

"You cannot improve by just playing matches. Last year in youth football, 50 percent of the games were won by big scores like 10-0. So what we have done for this year is have a two tier system.

"The top teams will be pooled in the top group and the weaker teams in the lower group, thus making it more competitive for all.

"By starting in January this gives us a chance to educate our coaches and prepare them. In an effort to improve football we have also introduced the national academy so we can better monitor the top players training times and habits."

Let us take a look at the major pros and cons of starting youth football in January.

Pros: The quality of school football and club football will enhance overall.

Children will have more time to practise and learn the proper fundamentals of the game before trying to execute them in a match situation. Children will not have to choose between school and club, they can focus solely on one at a time.

Cons: The more time our kids spend doing nothing the more chance they have of getting into mischief. If there is no football you will find kids and parents turning to other sports to keep busy, hence some kids could end up turning away from football and playing another sport.

Change is always difficult. Most people in the world or should I say in Bermuda cannot handle change.

Well, we as a football country have been stagnant for some time and I agree we have to try different things to get different results. Time will tell as I am sure all facets are being monitored and scrutinised carefully. In the long run Mr Broadly has come in to do a job, therefore, we have to back him and trust that his remedy will work for us as a country.

Whenever you implement new things very rarely do you see immediate results, but it is the end result that counts and I know in years to come Bermuda football will once again blossom.