FOOTBALL DANGERS

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 234, 29 June 1922, Page 4

FOOTBALL DANGERS

TEST CASE FOR FRENCH SCHOOLS

A case which might have had for French schools very serious consequences on the development of sports in general and on football in particular was decided in the Paris Courts in April. Two years ago Jacques Collet, _ aged 15. was dribbling with a hard indiarubber ball in the recreation court of the College Rollin, an important public school in the north of the city. Another boy—it has never been known who —gave the ball a hard kick which at the same time projected a pebble into Collet’s eye with such force that the eye has lost permanently 50 per cent, of its vision power and is threatened with cataract in the future. Collet’s pere brought an action against tho State as employer of the teaching staff and against the headmaster. M. Cuvillier. He claimed 75,000 francs (£1500) damages for tho injury to his son’s eye. Tho headmaster was, he argued, in fault for having allowed “la ball© an pied,” a dangerous game, to bo played in a gravel court. After listening io learned arguments for and gainst, the First Chamber fortunately took a common-sense view of the case. It ruled that the accident was a risk such as every young boy of Cpllot’s age was exposed to if he playgame even in a court where stones have collected in the course of years.”