A Miami-based company is offering genetic tests aimed at assessing a child's soccer talents, Deadspin reports.
The company, Soccer Genomics, offers genetic analysis to determine a soccer player's potential and design a program to unleash that talent. Deadspin notes that this isn't the only such company, but that it is "absurd and frightening." It argues that rather than unlocking kids' soccer potential, it could instead turn kids away from the sport once they learn they, like most people, are average athletes.
Deadspin adds that a 2015 consensus statement in the British Journal of Sports Medicine said that "in the current state of knowledge, no child or young athlete should be exposed to DTC genetic testing to define or alter training or for talent identification aimed at selecting gifted children or adolescents."
The test further caught the attention of genomic researchers and ethicists on Twitter, it adds. In a tweet, the University of Alberta's Tim Caulfield wonders whether it's the "[w]orst DTC genetic test ever?"