http://nycfc.com/News/Latest-News/2014/April/Affiliates NYCFC forms affiliations with 8 NYC based youth clubs. The eight affiliate clubs are: • Blau-Weiss Gottschee • Downtown United Soccer Club • Manhattan Soccer Club • Metropolitan Oval • New York Soccer Club • South Bronx United • Staten Island United • World Class FC Of special interest is of course former Cosmos affiliate Gottschee. Also I believe a few of these groups have ties to local PDL or NPSL clubs. I wonder what that could mean.
It´s NYCFC laying down a marker really.. It does send out a message that youth soccer will be one of the cornerstones of the club.
Met Oval is close to the bk/qns border and pretty well connected to several bkln neighborhoods, so there is that...
Does this mean NYCFC will not have a youth academy of its own? It sounds like they're using these teams as farms to find talent for big brother MCFC.
There is zero mention of an academy though. Only affiliates. I think the best thing about NYC entering the league is that they could have a great academy if they wanted to.
http://www.nycfc.com/Academy/Contact-Us "Thank you for your interest in New York City Football Club’s Academy. The first phase of our program was to announce 8 official Youth Affiliate partner clubs across the five boroughs. The next phase is to announce and launch the official New York City FC Academy and we hope to have some information on our plans for that in the coming months. " It was also mentioned during the recent meet & greet between Reyna and co. and supporters but I don't have a link for that.
Philly also started by affiliated with existing clubs and then eventually creating a Union Academy of their own. Everything is in stages and takes time.
Since only the Aviator Soccer Field Rentals ( of the Blau-Weiss Gottschee ) is in Brooklyn , I hope that the NYCFC Academy will be located in the most populous borough of NYC !!!