Rumored DA Termination

Discussion in 'Referee' started by GearRef, Apr 11, 2020.

  1. GearRef

    GearRef Member

    Manchester City
    United States
    Jan 2, 2018
    La Grange Park, Illinois
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There’s quite a few tweets and articles flying around right now with rumors that USSF will shut down the Development Academy and MLS (possibly partnering with USL) will start their own league. Assuming this is true, my bet is that the non MLS academy teams will move to ECNL/ENPL, the girls academy will move to ECNL, or US Soccer will restructure a league for the non MLS teams. What this will mean for how referees is unclear. I assume the MLS league will be assigned by the LAC’s, but will these only go to Regional referees? Will they be more prestigious assignments? Any DA referees who don’t live near an MLS or USL team are pretty much hosed. And what will happen with showcases? DA showcases, especially summer, were incredibly important for exposure to PRO. What will the new place to be seen be?

    SoccerWire article: https://www.soccerwire.com/resource...-u-s-soccer-to-shut-down-development-academy/
     
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  2. Mirepo

    Mirepo Member

    Nov 3, 2016
    I left my draft open for a while and once I posted, you had already beat me to the punch. Since mine will get closed, I'll post my questions again here:

    If true, what effect will this have on referee development? DA showcases became the go-to events to get ID'ed, taking the place of Regionals, which I heard frustrated some in the upper echelons. MLS/PRO obviously controls who gets into the pro ranks, but if this league comes to fruition and DA dies, does that now mean MLS controls referee development and selection from high level youth through the top league in the U.S.? If so, what does that mean for the US Soccer Referee Dept (or am I overthinking things?) I'm interested to hear what the experts here make of the situation, if it is in fact true.
     
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  3. GearRef

    GearRef Member

    Manchester City
    United States
    Jan 2, 2018
    La Grange Park, Illinois
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Luckily for me, I live right next to an MLS team, but if this all happens, I still feel like I’d be screwed. Instead of the 3 DA teams near me, 2 of them with boys and girls programs, it is now one program, just boys. I feel like the vast majority of the assignments will go to the higher ups, leaving an up and coming teenager like myself in a bad spot. And I was just starting to get some older middles too...

    To be honest, I have no experience with ECNL or ENPL, save for the fact that the latter held their National Playoffs/U19 finals near me and used our assignor, so I was invited to that. I once got 2 U13 girls ECNL assignments that I had to decline, too. That’s it. I’d be interested in attending ECNL showcases when I turn 18, but again, no clue how to get into that. I was pretty sure once I turn 18 I would go to regionals, but with our new SYRA I’m not so sure anymore. I wonder if there will be MLS Showcases? Or how it will tie in with Generation Adidas? Plus, if you remember, I was one of the referees in the new Learning Center training, and just got an email from the referee department asking if I wanted to be on one of the flags at “events”. Now I feel like that wasn’t a legitimate question. Obviously the referee dept will still be there to run the referees for this country, I assume it will be USSF badges on these MLS Youth games, so I don’t see any major changes there.
     
  4. Mirepo

    Mirepo Member

    Nov 3, 2016
    The local landscape will look the same in my region with just one boys team. The ECNL events I've been to have been well ran and a high level of play.

    We'll still be wearing USSF badges on these games, of course, but I was asking something deeper: MLS can exert greater influence on the referee corps at a lower level than they have previously (unless I've just been blind to it), basically from Regional Referee and up. With MLS's history when it comes to refereeing and a shoddy/shady disciplinary system, that worries me. Though PRO and Webb have improved the state of affairs and seem to protect professional referees from some of the things that have happened in the past with prior leadership.
     
  5. Rufusabc

    Rufusabc Member+

    May 27, 2004
    In my years as an official, I have noticed a couple of things. For every team that is 15-0 there is another team that is 0-15 or 1-14. Doesn’t make any difference what level you are playing at either. In my short experience with DA, there are just as many awful teams as good ones. So if there are thousands now playing DA across the country, and there are roughly 23 places on the various age group national teams, is this money well spent?

    The best age group teams that I have seen have always been affiliated with my local MLS club. It has been that way for years.

    Now, from an officiating point of view, I don’t think The next Mark Geiger gets to be as good as he is by refereeing DA matches. I have done a handful of DA matches in my career, and TBH, they weren’t that difficult! But, I’ve also watched a few of the young bucks make them far more difficult than they need to be.
     
  6. GearRef

    GearRef Member

    Manchester City
    United States
    Jan 2, 2018
    La Grange Park, Illinois
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Right. Because of the scouts at a lot of the matches and the coaches watching intently, players don’t act up. A scout doesn’t want to see a player get sent off for cursing out the referee. You get to be “the next Mark Geiger” by doing DA games for other things. Positioning, since the level of play is typically high, administrative stuff and report writing, teamwork (working with high level referees), among others. You go to DA events to get seen. You work on your management skills, game flow, and how to orchestrate a game in your amateur men’s games.
     
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  7. jdmahoney

    jdmahoney Member

    Feb 28, 2017
    Plymouth, MN
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
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  8. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I imagine you don't mean literally (and you're actually making a good point with the "for other things" statement), but it's still important to point out for the purposes of this conversation that Mark Geiger got his National badge 6 years before DA was founded. DA isn't some magical elixir that affords everyone an opportunity to be a FIFA referee. It's just another competition.

    I wouldn't be too concerned about this. Honestly, for a little while, DA did serve as the place for referee ID and development and did supplant the USYS regionals/nationals route. But I'd say that hasn't truly been the case for 3-5 years. You go back to 2015 and prior and the quality of referee attending the showcases was at its pinnacle--it took a lot to get there and the people doing the top U17/U18 matches at those events were getting looks by important assessors and scouts. Now, with the explosion of teams and events, that's not quite the case. PRO staff was crawling around the showcases from DA's inception until about 2015. Now? Other than for the Nike Friendlies, they don't really care. Generation Adidas had already taken over as the premier opportunity for referees looking to make the leap. Hell, USSF has had to require National Referees to attend one of the DA showcases as though its a chore more than an opportunity because they know NRs have no real reason to spend a week doing these matches. That was not the case a few years ago.

    As far as the league goes, the identification of referees through DA matches also is sort of a myth. Local assignors and LACs test out referees on those matches and it is a stepping stone, yes--of course that's true. But it's not like there are PRO scouts heading out to regular season DA matches. Those are all just regular youth matches when it comes down to it. Sure, they give a higher level match to get an assessment on, but that's about it. Other competitions can and will still offer that.

    The big point here is that something else will take the place of DA for both league purposes and "showcase events." If MLS/USL creates its own league, USSF referees still have to fill those assignments. It's not like the PRO office in New York is going to start its own referee registration process for U14 matches around the country. I really wouldn't worry about this. If you live in certain places, sure, you might not have as many league opportunities for this new competition. But the players for your local DA clubs will still exist and still be playing.

    Change is hard and confusing. But if your personal goal is to get to USL matches and maybe even MLS one day, I genuinely think this affects someone's realistic chances in no way whatsoever. It might affect how you get there, inosfar as order of events and regular cadence of assignments go.
     
  9. funref13

    funref13 Member

    Dec 12, 2019
    This is spot on!
     
  10. Law5

    Law5 Member+

    Mar 24, 2005
    Beaverton OR
    I agree with everything that Massachusettsref said.

    I have friends who are youth coaches. DA started out as a place for 'the best of the best of the best' to be trained for the pro ranks. Those who didn't make it to the pro level could at least become D1 college players. There was also the unspoken motivation on the part of USSF that they would now have the developmental rights to those players. That meant that their contract could be sold to, say, a European club for big bucks, with the money going to USSF, rather than the youth club where they had played before. (And USSF has to fight a law suit about their refusal to pass on money from those contract sales back to the youth clubs.)

    The structural problem was that a model like that assumes that there were enough coaches and players in a given geographic area to form a team at a high level. What about the one great player from, say, Montana? too bad, so sad, his parents should move. But the pressure was on, especially in venues like Cal South, for more teams to participate in DA, because "we've got a really strong team, too, and....." No coach wants to "lose" his best player(s) to that DA team down the road, the one that's suggesting that they can be a pro player some day. So the answer is to get our club into DA. That diluted the talent pool, however. And then DA got extended down in age groups. I've seen a lot of very, very talented U-12 players. I can't point to even three of them that ever played D1 college, much less professionally. (The club that i was associated with for many years has sent two players to MLS.) The dilution of DA by adding more teams and levels has made it into an 'everybody is a great player' deal, because players and their parents don't like getting the message that they're just not good enough to be the next Messi.

    And in the beginning coaches were told that DA would tell them what to teach and how to teach it. Naturally, coaches felt that they knew better than some guy named Klinsy what their players needed, and, besides, who was going to know that they weren't teaching a flat back four this week? I'll teach them what they need to know.

    I believe it was in the '70s and '80s that England had "centers of excellence," where kids were brought in to a school that the FA ran and they were trained to be the next one to wear a shirt with three lions on it. They were away from home. Gee, teenage boys away from home? What could go wrong? Sounds sort of like a residential version of DA. It didn't work in England, either.
     
  11. Bubba Atlanta

    Bubba Atlanta Member+

    Mar 2, 2012
    Yep, Atlanta
    Club:
    Atlanta United FC
    Will this mean that these kids can go back to playing for their HS teams?
     
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  12. RedStar91

    RedStar91 Member+

    Sep 7, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    What @MassachusettsRef said.

    As like everything in regards to soccer in this country, it's just "changing the name" and completely arbitrary as to what is the "highest level." Something else will come along and eventually just turn into another watered down youth league.

    It's like MLS, MLS was "major league" in name only for probably the first 15 years of its existence.

    Development Academy was never really developing "world class" players.

    I can't say I'm surprised. The program had run it's course and how many elite or above average MLS players did it produce, much less regular US national team players?

    Been in existence for over 10 years and I can't think of one MLS player that really came through the Academy ranks and became an above average to elite MLS player?

    I'm sure it was also a huge expense for US Soccer as well. From my understanding, for every showcase event they footed the bill for housing and travel for the teams.

    Don't forget all the referee fees. One three man crew for US Soccer cost $175. There are roughly 300 DA games a weekend. That's $52,500 a weekend on referees alone (give or take). There are how many weekends in a DA season.?35-40? That's roughly $2.1 million dollars on referee fees and I"m probably on the low side.

    You're talking in the range of what $10-20 million dollars to fund the DA program? Maybe more.

    For those referees aspiring to reach USL, NWSL and other professional leagues this changes really nothing. There will always be an avenue/competition to reach the professional ranks.

    Pre-DA it was Youth Regionals/Nationals and a combination of Adult Amateur Regionals/Nationals and PDL.

    Now it's probably gonna be Generation Adidas Cup and probably back to Youth Regionals/Nationals or whatever name they come up with a DA for MLS teams.

    I will say that I do find it absolutely staggering that it might be the only soccer competition in the entire country that never increased or raised referee fees. It started in 2010 and the same $75-50 fee applied for all 10 seasons. Every other competition that I've have been in has raised fees over the decade.

    What the closure of this program will do is hurt the local grade 8 youth referees who never really aspired to move up in a financial sense. When DA first started out, pretty much the best referees in your city were doing those games. It was a big deal to get a DA U17/18 middle 8 years ago. It was a national candidate, high level state referee assignment.

    Now that they expanded to so many age groups assignors were desperate for bodies to cover games. If you could breath and have a badge you could can get a DA assignment.

    Even though DA fees have not increased it still pays way better than your local recreational youth competitions (at least in my area).

    All DA games pretty much paid $75 for a middle and $50 for a line (regardless of age group, I think). A 40 minute U14 day game or single center U13 DA game paid way better than a local youth game at the same age group.
     
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  13. Thug Mentality

    May 30, 2011
    No, it started in '07 but the point stands. I worked the very first weekend of DA, a U17/18 middle for $75. nbd. 13 seasons later in 2019, last fall, I did another U17/18 middle for $75 and thought, what is going on with these fees?
     
  14. GearRef

    GearRef Member

    Manchester City
    United States
    Jan 2, 2018
    La Grange Park, Illinois
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I was especially mad about how easy people were being let into DA. They let me in when I was 13, and I’ll forever be grateful for that. But our LAC was at an ODP event our state uses for mentoring, and he was saying that “everybody here is going to be in the DA group.” He now has ~325 people in our group. We had people there working their FIRST EVER MIDDLES. Heck, I was on the line with one of these people and she called a ball OOB for a goal kick when it was 100% on the line! She was at the top of the box making this decision. Eric Boria was mentoring us on that game so you better believe I was hustling to get to the goal line, and I was dumbfounded. I’m all for giving young referees a chance and mentoring them but there is no way they should be put on DA games. Maybe he knew this was going to happen, I don’t know. I just hope I’ll get some of these MLS youth games.
     
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  15. code1390

    code1390 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Nov 25, 2007
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The best players will keep playing somewhere. Maybe it's ECNL. Maybe the top level of youth leagues will start to get better again and the state cup and regionals will truly have great soccer once again. Maybe even HS soccer will get better once again.
     
  16. GearRef

    GearRef Member

    Manchester City
    United States
    Jan 2, 2018
    La Grange Park, Illinois
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Official announcement has been made:


     
  17. Rufusabc

    Rufusabc Member+

    May 27, 2004
    For the last several years, I have had the distinct pleasure to referee at an ECNL populated Memorial day tournament. I struck up a conversation with a female coach from a DC-area based club. This was a few years ago, and I remember her telling me it was important for her players to be able to play HS soccer with their classmates. Who wouldn't want to win a state championship so that for the next 40 years you can talk about it when you see your former classmates? Sure bests winning the Surf Cup!
     
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  18. RedStar91

    RedStar91 Member+

    Sep 7, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    Quite incredible. I'm not anti-US Soccer Federation as some others are. but I'm getting really fed up with the federation and the way they are doing things. They don't know what they are doing.

    And I happen to think they are getting an unfair shake when it comes to the equal pay issue between the USWMNT and USMNT.

    But using a global pandemic as the reason to terminate the program instead of just admitting that you were thinking about this months ago?

    At least have the courage to tell the truth or wait until May/June to cancel it.

    They don't know what they are doing and have no sense of direction or vision for the referee program, National Team program or even youth development.
     
  19. Rufusabc

    Rufusabc Member+

    May 27, 2004
    An unfair shake? Their disastrous court filing earlier this year cost their leader his job. They deserve everything they are getting.
     
  20. RedStar91

    RedStar91 Member+

    Sep 7, 2011
    Club:
    FK Crvena Zvezda Beograd
    This is obviously hijacking the thread and I won't comment anymore after this.

    My point was they (US Soccer) were wrongly being vilified at the beginning by the media and the USWMNT for not paying the USWMNT the same as the men.

    It's like asking the LA WNBA team to be paid the same as the LA Lakers.

    I just don't believe that the USWMNT has any argument for equal pay due to pure economics. They don't play in competitions that generate the same revenue that the competitions the men play in. I know there are metrics out there that you can manipulate to say the women do bring in as much revenue or more as the men, etc.

    It's simple math.

    I don't begrudge the federation for not trying to defend the pay differences. Now the way, they went about defending themselves was terribly botched.
     
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  21. Pelican86

    Pelican86 Member

    United States
    Jun 13, 2019
  22. Rufusabc

    Rufusabc Member+

    May 27, 2004
    I will leave this here, too. Totally botched.
     
  23. MassachusettsRef

    MassachusettsRef Moderator
    Staff Member

    Apr 30, 2001
    Washington, DC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't have the knowledge to debate this fully and it is admittedly off-topic, but I don't think this is true at all. They aren't MLS players right now, but I refereed matches with Pulisic, Steffen and Sargent, which are three sort of pretty big names for US Soccer right now. I cannot imagine that a lot (most?) of what would be considered the "above average" domestic MLS players didn't come through DA in some capacity right now. I mean, where else are they playing? This doesn't prove that DA was the perfect concept and spending some time there doesn't mean the absolutely best truly developed there. But it was the elite national league for the past decade. It's natural the best youth players played there. If the "above average" American and Canadian MLS players over the last 5+ years spent their youth soccer days outside DA... well, that would be a pretty damning indictment of the whole thing.

    Admittedly also off-topic, but I was listening to a legal podcast several weeks ago (the participants were not regular soccer fans, but had done their research) and they more or less came to this conclusion:

    Without diving into all the merits and having a debate here, they essentially agreed that USSF had (or has, I suppose) a pretty compelling legal argument in response to the lawsuit.

    But USSF also made the worst public relations argument one could possibly make--an argument so bad that it likely helped undermine the legal case.

    In other words, both you and @RedStar91 can be "right" on this.
     
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  24. threeputzzz

    threeputzzz Member+

    May 27, 2009
    Minnesota
    So a question for those that follow such stuff (I don't). The DA model was accepting youth club teams - presumably parents fork out big bucks to the club for their kid to play in DA. Under the MLS run model I assume this will no longer be the case, or too soon to know? If so how is this not a step in the right direction?
     
  25. ArgylleRef

    ArgylleRef Member

    Jan 23, 2004
    Lansing, KS
    MR would you care to share the link?
     

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