Life and death? It's far more serious than that . . .

Bill Shankly's remark about the importance of soccer would find favour with Italian parents. Pity their children, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome

The scene is Naples, once the footballing home of arguably the greatest player of all time, the Argentine Diego Maradona. We are in the 89th minute of a keenly contested derby between Virgilio and Bagnolese, sides that draw many of their players from the city's upwardly mobile Posillipo area.

With seconds to go, the referee blows for a penalty. Immediately angry players surround him. Some spit at him, some throw dirt at him; eventually others punch him. Soon some spectators invade the pitch; others on the sideline are screaming for the poor ref's head. Only the intervention of a match official saves the day, with the shaken referee being dragged to safety and the match abandoned.

You might argue that, in this age of multimillionaire soccer gladiators, there is nothing strange about all of that. The significant aspect of the episode, though, is that the angry players are 12 years old, the referee they are assaulting only 15.

It will probably come as no surprise to discover that in a country such as Italy, where soccer is a serious business, children's soccer generates fierce passions. Walk around city pitches on a Saturday morning and you are likely to be greeted with cries of "hit him!", "take him down!", "break his leg!" and other touchline encouragement from doting parents to their little Giovanni, their would-be Alessandro Del Piero or Francesco Totti.

Buried among the statistics of a business that involves 450,000 children and 6,730 clubs and generates an annual turnover of €150 million is one cruel mathematical probability. Only one child in 16,000 makes it into professional soccer, let alone develops a career along the lines of Beckham, Zidane, Ronaldo et al.

In theory, children's soccer is about having fun. In practice, it is often about the pressures heaped on the little sods by parents convinced that their Giovanni is only one "nutmeg" (putting the ball between your opponent's legs) away from fame. Sergio Vatta, a man whose work with the youth team at Torino helped discover players such as the Italian international Christian Vieri, recalls his experience in the late 1980s. "With kids, we discovered that at the age of six years many of them are already talented and not inhibited by anything. We also learned, though, that many of them are traumatised by the expectations and dreams that their parents want them to live out."

The soccer schools or clubs, then, cater for the children's enthusiasm on the one hand and for the parents' dreams on the other. At this point - for the benefit of Irish readers - we must immediately highlight one cultural peculiarity. Italian schools offer no organised sports programmes. The school team is an alien concept for the average Italian. If parents want their children to practise a sport, they must enrol them in after-school clubs. (Mind you, as nearly all secondary schools end their day at 1 p.m. there is plenty of after-school time.)

Once, of course, children just went out and played in the streets, often using a battered old plastic ball or worse. Yet that time is about as close to the reality of today's cosseted Western childhood as Henry Ford's Model T is to the Ford Ka.

The environmental factors inevitably coalesce. You have a country of 57 million people, of whom a modest 90 per cent are soccer crazy. You have, too, the lunatic footballing enthusiasm of young males (and females).

Then there are the concerns of parents who, at best, are simply at a loss as to what to do with their little horrors come the weekend or, at worst, are blind with soccer ambition. The result is a booming business in scuole di calcio, soccer schools.

In principal, the ruling body in Italian soccer, the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio, regulates the children's sector. This entails ensuring that the clubs have proper sports and medical facilities and employ qualified coaches. As of now, 2,837 of Italy's 6,730 "soccer schools" have received the federation's approval, with the other 3,893 awaiting formal recognition.

For the modest sum of anything from €250 to €600, little Giovanni can be happily enrolled at such a school. All you need to do is supply the dosh and a medical certificate. Depending on the club, little Giovanni will be kitted out with a full set of playing gear plus tracksuit.

Training at most clubs takes place twice a week, often in the evenings and always involving Mammy or Daddy in tedious waits in the semi-frozen darkness. Now and again, if little Giovanni lasts the course, a scout working on behalf of a senior professional club may drop by. If he likes what he sees, he may even take out a "preliminary contract" on the budding 12-year-old.

That could happen for the one-in-16,000 player. For the other 15,999, there is always the danger that the idea of a game, of fun, gets lost along the way.

As Ezio Rossi, the Torino coach, told La Repubblica: "You've got to be careful. Some of the schools teach sport, but others are only interested in making money. I get the impression that it is often the parents who enrol their kids even before the child asks to sign up. The parents' expectations are by far the most dangerous thing."