A double forfeit in a peewee football game sheds light on a big problem in youth sports.

The video shows an 8-year-old boy, suited up in shoulder pads and a helmet, run across the track and sit on the bench. The game’s opening kickoff is underway, and the team’s coaches are fixated on the field.

It’s clear they don’t see him.

The boy never played, but late in the fourth quarter of the junior peewee-league game, with players ages 6-9, he’d been noticed by the opposing team’s staff. Things quickly went downhill from there. League officials halted the game with less than 3 minutes to play. Parents and coaches of both sides exchanged heated words, and tensions got so high Salinas Police were allegedly called to the scene. (Some parents report seeing a patrol car in the parking lot, but SPD says the call was medical and officers didn’t respond.)

The game – a Nov. 8 playoff between the Seaside Raiders and North County Bulldogs at Everett Alvarez High – was ultimately declared a double forfeit in a league board meeting the next day. But in the immediate aftermath, that hardly mattered: Kids from both teams were confused, scared and crying.

“This is not the NFL, people. Come on,” says Raiders Head Coach T.J. Brown, who was visibly agitated after the game was called. “My [player] was bawling and crying, thinking he cost us the game.”

Brown’s Raiders had been 9-2 in the season, the second-best record in the Monterey Bay Youth Football League (MBYFL). They had pulled ahead in the fourth quarter from being down 0-2 to leading 15-2.

The double forfeit happened like this: After being notified a Seaside player who hadn’t weighed in was on the sidelines in uniform, North County coaches informed referees they were playing the game in protest.

League officials ended the game, even though protocol dictates they should have let the game play out and made a decision later. Seaside coaches filed a retaliatory protest, saying some North County players hadn’t weighed in, either. It was decided a day later both teams were at fault, and the Alvarez Titans – which had lost to both teams this season – were given a free ride to the championship.

“If there was no protest, we would have let them play,” says MBYFL board member Clovis Clinton. “But there have to be consequences for rules that are broken.”

So far, those consequences – crying kids and a volatile shouting match in the aftermath (the video did not capture audio from the scene) – have been felt painfully.

“I don’t like the way the MBYFL handled the situation,” says Nicole Hinojos, a North County parent. “In the end, it’s not the coaches being affected by this, it’s the kids.”

After video showed Seaside’s ineligible player never entered the game, North County coaches withdrew their protest. But the league board was unswayed and unanimously called the game a double forfeit.

“I’ve coached youth sports for almost 15 years now, and it’s never the kids that screw it up. It’s always the adults,” says North County coaching director Chris Anderson. “It sucks to have been one of the adults in this situation.”