Everyone's a winner?

In the classic children’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a very chaotic race takes place. When it finishes, no one knows who has won. To clear up the confusion, one of the characters proposes a startling solution: ‘EVERYBODY has won the race, and all must have prizes’. Obviously, the author wrote this scene for its comic effect. However, today, there is a growing movement in several countries to organise children’s sport so that there are no winners or losers. In Canada, for example, a regional football organisation has decided that in the future, in matches between under-12 teams, no one will keep score. Although this decision might seem strange, there is some interesting thinking behind it.

Supporters of the idea maintain that competitive sport puts some children off exercise forever because of the intense pressure to win. Sport for children, they argue, should be fun and not about winning or losing. Another problem occurs with children who aren’t very sporty. They end up losing most of the time and feel they have let the rest of the team down. There is a real possibility that these children will develop a negative self-image which will possibly stay with them the rest of their lives. Competitive sport can also encourage kids to think of their classmates as ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ in general. These are clearly not the values we want to communicate to young children. Finally, when beating your opponent becomes the main objective in sport, there is always a danger that some children are going to want to win at any cost and will cheat.

Not everyone, of course, is in favour of sport without winners and losers. Many people maintain that losing actually builds character because it encourages you to get over disappointments and try harder. It’s also true that an element of competition is present in many aspects of life, such as doing well in exams or getting a job, and competitive sport prepares young people for these challenges. Sport is also more exciting and challenging when there is a risk of losing. In addition, for children who don’t do well in other school subjects, sport can be their one opportunity to be really good at something. Do we really want to take this opportunity away from them?

In Canada, and in other countries, more and more organisations are experimenting with non-competitive sport and it appears to be taking off. However, not all the kids are crazy about it. For example, in games which are in theory non-competitive, players often shout out the score when the ball goes in the back of the net and they celebrate victories on the pitch at the end of the match!

In the end, it’s quite tricky to come to a clear conclusion about this new version of children’s sport. Kids are different, so non-competitive sport will work well with some and not with others. Perhaps a bigger question is: Can we really talk about ‘sport’ when there is no element of competition? Isn’t sport without competition just exercise?