Well hopefully Paul Lapointe has some more specifics. Wynalda sounded like the guy who got fed up and thinks he can't do worse but really has no concrete plans. And Gans sounded exactly like Sunil would have sounded has he stood up and spoke, all about business and deals, which is more Dan Flynn.
Gans sounded good to me. Unlike Sunil he will put soccer people over the soccer and he is not part of the MLS/SUM/USSF cabal. Sounds ideal.
Specific is an ironically fungible word, but LaPointe did publish a "platform": From the smallest benches to the largest board room. pic.twitter.com/94xCIyiASH— Paul J. Lapointe (@PaulLapointe98) October 23, 2017
The highlight in the LaPointe "platform" for me is the line about removing conflicts of interest. That is loaded as hell as far as the current people with USSF are concerned and although I totally agree with him, it is pretty much a guarantee he won't get elected imo. For more on the conflict of interests at play: https://prorelforusa.blogspot.com/2017/10/sunil-gulatis-major-conflict-of.html http://www.soccernomics-agency.com/?p=973 Second, US Soccer exempts from its conflict of interest policy “any constituent or affiliated member entities of U.S. Soccer.” This is hugely problematic because an affiliate of US Soccer is Major League Soccer, which contains a for-profit marketing arm called Soccer United Marketing. The opportunities for conflict are many. For instance, according to the New York Daily News, in addition to being US Soccer president since 2006, Gulati was “also a founder, board member and deputy commissioner of MLS, and a member of SUM’s board of directors.” The actual inter-related workings of SUM, MLS and US Soccer are opaque, to put it mildly. We do not know if SUM provides any compensation to US Soccer officials or if any of these individuals have an equity stake in SUM. We also do not know much about the business relationships between SUM, MLS owners, sponsors, vendors, clients and others with a financial interest in decisions made by SUM. That includes US Soccer officials who oversee the organization’s non-profit functions.
Yep. If you put that little care into your public-facing statement about the USSF presidency, then you're not the right person for the job. I proofread my posts on here more carefully than LaPointe proofread his statement.
🎤 @thesoccerdon “#ATLUTD academy, which is among I think one of the great academies in the world.”🔴⚫️ pic.twitter.com/X7i4tMzheK— ATLUTD Academy (@AcademyATLUTD) October 24, 2017
Development, Development, Development. That's what I want the next President talking about. If you start with getting rid of pay for play (impossible), REL/PROM without also including a massive investment into U21, U23 teams, then I don't really want to hear from you.
I thought this was an incredibly insightful thought from Kevin Payne: https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...ne-on-the-current-freak-out-player-devel.html Pay-to-play is taking a lot of heat but how many people have any idea of what the numbers really are? Tell me anything or any place that isn’t pay-to-play. Every soccer player who’s reached a decent level in Germany, somebody’s paying for that. That’s not free. The only question is: ‘Who pays for it?’ They have an economic model in which they’re generating enough money through television rights and so forth that the bulk of that expense is being borne by the professional clubs and the DFB itself. We’re not there yet. We did a survey this year to our membership and we got a very significant level of response, certainly statistically significant. What we were told was that more than 75 percent of our families spend a minimum of $3,000 per year on soccer. We have 500,000 members. That means in our organization alone the parents are spending somewhere around $1.5 billion. So do we honestly think at some point there’s going to be a single-payer solution to this? It’s just ridiculous. Single-payer in the insurance world could work theoretically because the government could do it. The government’s not going to do this. How is the federation going to generate a billion and a half dollars? And by the way, that’s just our organization. The federation surplus is just a drop in the bucket, about 10 percent. And that’s only our organization. And the top-level kids are spending more, they have more travel.
The reason that PRO/REL works is it gives kids who aren't ready for the top flight, a legitimate place to develop and get competitive matches - but you also need U21 & U23 leagues to go with them. Think of Andrew Carleton, a U17 stud, who has no business starting for Atlanta - and nowhere else to play. PRO/REL wouldn't help him, but a legit U21 or U23 league would. But then you look at someone like Villareal, and perhaps a loan to a club trying to fight for promotion to MLS would be really helpful for his development. But I would MUCH rather have legit U21 & U23 leagues where younger players can compete and get better. That's how Pulisic got through to the first team at Dortmund, by getting better with the U21s. I want to see a President campaign on opening up MLS. There needs to be a real transfer market in the League, so you have legitimate motivation to develop kids. Let the Galaxy and TFC and Seattle Sounders and NYFC become Super Clubs, because it means they're putting more money into the system by paying transfer fees to other clubs. Who in turn can put even more money into developing their own youth players. Finally, I want to see much more rigorous requirements for playing Americans. MLS rosters are just 35% American. That's incredibly poor, and you want to see that number around 50%. Our younger middle class is getting destroyed.
One other thing that next Fed president should work on. One of the big things undermining development is that a 15 year old kid is going to be reluctant to sign a contract that will kill his college eligibility. But if he doesn't sign such a contract, if he continues to develop, Schalke or an MFL club will poach him. College soccer isn't just undermining development by underpreparing your workaday MLS fringe starters/top bench players, which weakens the league in which the USMNT level players mostly play. It also undermines our academies here by making it hard for them to sign players. The irony is, (I know this for basketball, I suspect it's true for soccer, which is especially dumb) that the NCAA allows Euros to play in college for doing things that would forbid the eligibility of American kids.
Except a 15 year old isn't getting paid a salary, and is thus still an amateur. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2003/jan/18/newsstory.sport2 Wayne Rooney signed his first professional contract after hr turned 17, and until then was given 90 pounds per week, except when he played in a first team match which turned into 1500. That academy contract probably could be considered a stipend in the eyes of the NCAA, which would be allowable
Is it? He played 25 games in total for Dortmund youth teams, and never for their U-21s. Besides that, I don't know that Pulisic is the example to follow in terms of youth development. Pulisic is a potential generational talent - players with less ability aren't going to accomplish the same things following the same model.
Which is 25 games more than Carleton will do against other talented youth players. Same with Weston McKennie and Haji Wright. And with McKennie, they were able to combine Youth teams with Pro/Rel system for his development. Jonathan Spector also made a career after spending time with a pretty talented Man Utd youth side, playing against other Premiership youth sides. People talk abour Euro Fair Dust - but really it's just an opportunity to develop by playing against other talented prospects, trying their damndest to break through. Now, Atlanta U17/18 actually have a team, though Carleton has never appeared for them, but you know who has? Chris Goslin - Who was pretty good for us in the U17 WC. Here are the teams that are on their schedule: Carolina Rapids U-18/19 Charlotte Soccer Academy U-18/19 Chargers Soccer Club U-18/19 Concorde Fire U-18/19 North Carolina FC Youth U-18/19 Orlando City SC U-18/19 Kendall SC U-18/19 Weston FC U-18/19 And so on and so forth. Literally just one first team club, Orlando - and they aren't competitive. No standings, no trophies at the end of a season. You can not call that development.
So Andrew Carleton, possibly our best prospect at the U17 level, has played exactly 5 competitive matches in the club setting in about a year
And the majority of Euro youth prospects wash out. I think you're vastly overstating the importance of "competitive" youth leagues.