I’ve looked, and Steiner does not say anything about soccer in the Waldorf schools, either for or against. Those Waldorf educators who have decided that soccer and Waldorf Education are incompatible (such as Will Crane in Spring Valley) have done so out of their own work and have their own carefully elaborated reasons. I haven’t pursued the issue in sufficient depth to have formed an opinion on it myself. Soccer is played in a large number of Waldorf schools, especially in the US. It is also not played in a number of Waldorf schools for various reasons, including the belief that Steiner spoke against it. Other reasons I have heard include a general aversion to competitive sports (which seems to originate more a cultural bias of one portion of the ’60s counterculture than from a carefully examined pedagogical basis) and the opinion that engaging the feet instead of the hands would have negative pedagogical implications.
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