*Nevada, the 3-year-old soccer phenom whose i9 Sports youth league game in Winter Park, Florida, ended with a police call, is still shaken by what happened, his mother told HuffPost.
“It really traumatized Nevada,” said his mother, Martasia, who gave only her first name. “He still wants to play soccer. He just doesn’t want to go back to that place.”
Something positive has come out of the ordeal. Former professional soccer player Eddie Johnson saw the story and offered Nevada a spot in his youth training program in Orlando. The toddler starts there in January, his mom said.
“Now that this situation happened, he’s just gonna take [Nevada] under his wing because he has the proper program for him,” Martasia said.
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Soccer has been part of Nevada’s life since before his first birthday. According to his mother, he practices three hours a day with his dad. According to the child’s mother, his skill is exactly what drew complaints. The preschooler plays against kids two years older. Martasia said the adults huddled as soon as the game began.
“As soon as he started the game, they stopped the game. Other parents, the director, and some of the coaches got in a circle, and I knew they were talking about Nevada, trying to figure out how to let us know that he can’t play so the other kids could play,” she said.
When she pushed back, the situation escalated. “Once I started speaking up for Nevada, they just called the police,” she said. In a viral video, his father, Don, can be heard saying, “They called the police on a 3-year-old because he’s too good.”
The Winter Park Police Department said a league official made the call over a dispute with the boy’s parents at the Saturday game. Officers told those present it was a civil matter, and the visit ended peacefully.
i9 Sports said it is looking into the incident. “We are aware of concerns being shared regarding an incident at a local i9 Sports program, and we take them very seriously,” a spokesperson said. The family has received its registration money back.
For Martasia, the real cost is how her son now sees himself. “He’s scared that he did something wrong,” she said.
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