not sure about the proper board but... This is from a BBC article. Anyone know who this guy is? Do th ey mean a collegiate player? Is he an American? "Mark Melling, a 21-year-old defender formerly with Dundee and now on a soccer scholarship in the USA, has claimed that Hibs also want him to join them for training. The Daily Express suggests that Preston North End, Washington DC and Columbus Crew are other clubs interested in Melling."
Re: not sure about the proper board but... Not that I know anything about this player, but I would assume if he is in fact "on scholarship" he was not "formerly with Dundee" in a professional sense, unless the NCAA doesn't know about it.
Re: not sure about the proper board but... i read "soccer scholarship" and I immediatly think College.
Google can be useful. Mark Melling is currently a junior at Cal State Bakersfield, a Division II college. He is from Preston, England.
thanks - why google when I can interact with living, breathing humans? So a division II player is "wanted" by multiple pro clubs?
not really. Interested is not the same as "wanted". I remember back in high school one of our lineman got letters from places like Nebraska, FSU, and Syracuse. All big time Division 1 Football programs. He ended up taking a scholarship to a DII school.
that didn't mean those schools didn't want him, they just probably weren't going to give him a scholarship right off the bat
Re: Re: not sure about the proper board but... NCAA div 1 does not allow someone who once had professional status to be on scholarship. Everybody else does. So him being at CS Bakersfield, a NCAA II school, allowes him to be elligable for scholarship.
Re: Re: Re: not sure about the proper board but... No. If you've played one sport professionally, you can't play that same sport in college. It doesn't matter if it's NCAA DI, DII, or DIII, or even NAIA DI or DII. If he's been paid to play soccer, he's ineligible to play for any college, and should this be the case, his services would result in his college team forfeiting all their games he's played in, and possibly some sort of probation. You're eligible to play OTHER sports (LSU had a quarterback a couple season's back who'd washed out of minor league baseball, and that was legal).
NCAA Div II Amateurism Deregulation Guide http://www.ncaa.org/library/membership/amateurism_dereg_guide/d2_am_dereg_guide.pdf Page 8 - Contracts "Before initial full-time collegiate enrollment, and individual is allowed to sign a contract with a professional team for athletics participation." Looks like the contract must be voided or terminated prior to enrollment. You cannot be represented by an agent, though.
Re: Re: not sure about the proper board but... He probably played within their youth system. At the school where I played (many, many years ago), we had several players that started out with some pretty big clubs and as they got older they were eventually cut, quit or left the team for a variety of reasons. I don't think his situation is that unusual, but he probably never signed a "professional contract." I never really looked into the rules pertaining to soccer players participating with club teams, but it's probably similar to the way the NCAA looks at AAU basketball teams. The team picks up the cost of travel, uniforms, registration fees...but just doesn't pay the players...wink,wink
I hate to break this to you, but you are not interacting with living, breathing humans. It is all an illusion on your computer screen.