𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 ✍️#FCMC are delighted to announce the signing of American midfielder Jake Johnson for the 2020/21 season.Welcome Jake! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/YzrdPIci0R— FC Malaga City Academy (@FCMalagaCity) August 11, 2020 Usually, I'm able to provide some additional info on the player, but there are a bunch of college-aged players named Jake Johnson and none of the photos I've seen match. The club doesn't provide much info either.
I could be wrong but isn’t FC Malaga a pay to play academy for people doing it either for the experience or to try and be seen by actual academies?
It may very well be. I've mentioned this in other threads when someone goes there or to the Almunecar City club that operates as the club in the "pro" ranks. You'll see a handful of Yanks there at any time. I haven't seen anything that confirms the pay-2-play aspect of either club, but I suspect that is the case.
Based on what I can find, they have created high school programs called the Accelerator School with locations in Malaga (affiliated with Malaga City FC) and in North Carolina. It looks like tuition is €7,400 per year in Malaga. There also is a Virtual Academy with a tuition at $14,950 per year that offers a bunch of training and travel.
We should have one thread called something like "American kids on pay per play teams abroad". That will allow to those 90% of us who don't care about European equivalent of AYSO skip it.