Team of Experts

The story which broke this morning in The New York Times that nine present or former high-ranking members of FIFA, soccer's global governing body, had been arrested in Zurich, Switzerland after being indicted on corruption charges in the U.S., didn't surprise me in the least.

While the FIFA scandal has made national headlines, allegations of embezzlement and theft in sports organizations, large and small, are an almost every-day occurrence in cities and towns across America.

Although April - which was both National Youth Sports Safety Month and National Child Abuse Prevention Month - is now over, it doesn't mean that the work of parents in helping keep kids safer playing sports is over.

The decision by San Francisco 49er Chris Borland to retire from the NFL after just one season out of concern for the long-term effect of head trauma has predictably generated a media firestorm. But lost amid the hoopla is what it means for sports parents.

Here are two lessons I think parents with kids playing -- or considering playing -- football or other contact and collision sports can take away from the Borland retirement, and one lesson they shouldn't take away:

In July 2013, the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment ("NOCSAE") published a press release on its website stating that football helmets equipped with add-on products that were not originally affixed to the helmet during lab testing "void[ ] ... the helmet manufacturers'] certification of compliance with the NOCSAE standard."