http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files/AMA/legislative_council/Jan 10/Attachment A.pdf NCAA rules are byzantine and very hard to wrap one's head around sometimes, but according to everything I've read, the rule currently is that if one pro player was in an academy, everybody who played with him was ineligible for college, not just that player. But the new rule the Council has adopted (late January) and that should take effect* starting with kids who enroll in the fall of 2010, is that only the players who made money are ineligible, and the rest will still be considered amateurs. This could mean a whole bunch of things for soccer, almost all of them, from my point of view, good: - An influx of foreign academy products in the NCAA, raising the level of play. - A player could get signed by MLS (or, for that matter, an independent youth academy could sign one) and kept on a youth team without endangering his teammates' college eligibility. - A PDL team could field a mixed roster of pros and college players. (Or a USL team, or technically even MLS, but I would bet the players union might have a problem or two with teams saving money by using unpaid labor.) * - Now, this rule, from what I'm reading (my source for interpretation is here) isn't quite a done deal yet. There is an override possibility until March 17. It would take 30 member schools to send it back for review, and if they still want it, it would be voted on at the next Convention. So it's not quite all done yet, but it looks like this rule is indeed likely to go into effect, and it could herald distinct improvements to both NCAA soccer and MLS academies.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies I wonder if the current NCAA rulings are behind the Homegrown player rule that is currently used by MLS? Perhaps now with this new ruling MLS will open up the door more for the academies since they wont be ruining any academy players chances of playing in college. MLS uses the college draft as a big source of new talent right now and wouldn't have wanted to affect that pool with any NCAA conflicts but now if one is removed MLS could adapt to it. I agree that every possible outcome sounds good with this ruling.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies NCAA rules will always play a major part in MLS academy rules. If I'm the even halfway rational parent of a talented soccer player, I'm not doing anything to hurt his or her chance at a soccer scholarship.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Right, so if the NCAA loosens these rules in any way (and this would be a rather significant loosening), it opens up a lot of youth development options that never existed before.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies this is one of the biggest positive developments in youth development i've heard. as you stated stan, no only does this open the door to higher quality acadamy players, but lays the foundation for a much needed bridge between acadamy and full on paid pro.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies I'm not sure about the possibility of allowing players to actually compete against professionals. There will probably have to be some fine lines drawn and followed to maintain amateurism in those situations. The old-school amateurism ideal doesn't end with whether the player receives money, as shown by the existing rule regarding a pro player in an academy. The basis of that rule is the original concept, more than a century old, that an athlete gains an unfair advantage from the higher level of competition against professionals.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Definitely sounds promising. A quick question for those of you who are more familiar with the system. Would this allow a team to "claim" a player in their academy. Right now, the academy players are only attached to their parent clubs in the context of MLS. They can leave the country and go abroad as the please because the club has no right to them what-so-ever. Would a contract that doesn't pay the player but retains the rights to sell said player count as "a promise of payment"?
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies If I'm understanding this correctly, teams would be able to create bonafide reserve teams through a mixture of their academy and pro players, correct? If so, this is huge. Bill Schmidt, TFC Academy competes in the CSL, which is a semi-pro league that features some fully pro teams. A number of TFC-A players have gone on to the NCAA without consequence, so I believe they are already allowed to compete against pro players.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies The full text can be found here
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Questions: 1. Are these the real reasons hockey coaches are against, or is there something else that they don't want to say? 2. Is Major Junior A hockey similar to what you guys want for soccer? 3. If soccer eventually gets its own version of "Major Junior A", would the NCAA change the rules to outlaw it?
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies The promise of payment would only be if the player expected to get money from the transfer fee. This is the best news I've heard since the beginning of the academy system. This should give teams more incentive to spend money on their youth teams since they can now have their players sign (unpaid) contracts without worrying that their players will head down to Millionarios or something
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies I think it's that if you compete in Major Junior A and do well there, it makes you more likely to skip college, because you can become a hot prospect at that level. Yes, it's fairly similar, from what I've heard. One might think at first, but I haven't heard that. And when you think about some of the differences, maybe that makes some sense. For one, soccer coaches will gain something, in the form of a whole lot more foreign players eligible for recruitment, before they've lost anything in the form of more HS grads going straight pro. For another, the US development system is so far behind in terms of the ultimate product it produces, that if the number of guys turning pro straight out of high school goes from less than 6/yr today, to say 26/re down the line, it will have developed so many players so much better that players #27-50 each year, who will still wind up in college, will be better than players #7-30 are now.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Cool analysis, thanks. I guess the other point in pro soccer's favor would be inertia. Once coaches start recruiting from a league that mixes youth pros with youth amateurs, they'll probably get accustomed to it pretty quickly. Lots of coaches already focus on DA kids because they're so easy to scout.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Agreed. This is a great establishment, because its not like the NCAA scouting process will be hindered. I can see it putting pressure on MLS clubs to sign there academy prospects, because if they are playing with pro's and proving their skill of capable of playing professional. Teams would want to snap up contracts on those players, and if they dont, an NCAA Div 1 school will get a high quality,well experienced, player.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies I'm been gone for a while so I'm late on this, but this is great news! Mostly I'm excited for the possibilities this has for MLS academies. This makes the return of an MLS reserve division much more feasible (and palatable). Allowing youth players to play up with MLS reserves or young MLS reserves to play with an academy team is excellent news. This vertical integration will allow MLS teams to field a real reserve team without having to play three dudes from the local park and it will allow clubs to test academy players at a higher standard of play. It will also make the signing of U-17 type players a better proposition because they will have places to play. For now there's still no intermediate reserve step between the academy and the first team, but this is the sort of move that will really pave the way for that sort of thing. Amateurs are already allowed to compete against professionals. This happens in the PDL where there are several PDL-pro club and obviously this happens every year in the US Open Cup. The current rule is that amateurs are not allowed to be on the same team as professionals, so it's an all-or-nothing thing for each team.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaa...+of+amateurism+legislation_03_11_10_ncaa_news Bad news here. The proposal was overridden/suspended, and they'll meet again on April 29 to see if it can be modified in some way that won't get overridden. For what I'm reading here, it might be another part of the proposal that's causing the problem, not the amateurism change itself, so there may be reason to hope they can get it worked out.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies If I'm reading correctly, it seems like schools are complaining that the new rule is actually too restrictive--the rule forces players to forfeit some eligibility if they don't enroll in college within a year of graduating high school, and this could be unfair to athletes from countries where students finish high school at a young age.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies yea the article was confusing to me IMO. I couldnt figure out where they were talking about an issue regarding the future of MLS academy prospects
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Yeah, the NCAA is really byzantine and confusing, but the impression I got was that it could be what JG was talking about that was delaying it, not the rule itself. It's disappointing that it's being delayed for whatever reason, just because it was originally meant to apply starting in 2011, and it doesn't look like that time schedule can be met with the continuing debate. But there's still reason for hope that the important part of the rule change, which would manage to enhance both college soccer and MLS youth development at the same time, will eventually come to pass.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies unfortunate it will be delayed for sure, but personally, the fact that they are proactively addressing some of the pitfalls is encouraging.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Just an update here: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaa...organized+competition+rule_04_13_10_ncaa+news The rule was modified to address the situation with players who spent a year out of high school. (Basically on that part they're allowing it unfettered for this year with the intent to come back and address it later.) The modified rule was formally adopted on April 29, and is now subject to a new 60-day override period that will expire at the end of June. Most people believe it will now pass, and--better news yet--that it will still apply to recruits for this season. There is a Turkish basketball prospect, Enes Kanter, who the University of Kentucky is recruiting, who is being talked about as the 'poster boy' for this rule change. He played at Fenerbache, the Turkish soccer/basketball power, mostly with the youths but occasionally as a first teamer at as high a level as the Euroleague (the highest level of European basketball) but apparently never personally took money to play (apparently it's against FIBA laws to sign a contract before age 18, and he's 17 now). The old NCAA rules would have suspended him for a game for each match he played with pros (I don't know if the soccer rule is the same). The new ones would allow him to play immediately. College soccer is not likely to recruit anyone as good as Kanter (this kid broke Dirk Nowitzki's record for scoring at the Nike Hoop Summit, and was in line for a lucrative contract offer from Fenerbache by European Basketball standards, probably high six figures, but turned it down to play for Kentucky). But it will allow soccer to begin recruiting--presumably immediately--guys who've played in academies with pros, whether they are from Europe or the US, without penalty, as long as they themselves have not signed contracts. Right now, the infrastructure (mixed pro-am teams) doesn't exist for many Americans to be plucked this way right away, but I bet it's coming around the pike some time pretty soon. And there are a lot of Europeans crashing out of academies without being offered contracts who will leap at the chance for a free or subsidized college education in preference to playing semi-pro at some third division team, guys who still have some pretty darned good talent by US standards.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Just an update here: http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaa...organized+competition+rule_04_13_10_ncaa+news The rule was modified to address the situation with players who spent a year out of high school. (Basically on that part they're allowing it unfettered for this year with the intent to come back and address it later.) The modified rule was formally adopted on April 29, and is now subject to a new 60-day override period that will expire at the end of June. Most people believe it will now pass, and--better news yet--that it will still apply to recruits for this season. There is a Turkish basketball prospect, Enes Kanter, who the University of Kentucky is recruiting, who is being talked about as the 'poster boy' for this rule change. He played at Fenerbache, the Turkish soccer/basketball power, mostly with the youths but occasionally as a first teamer at as high a level as the Euroleague (the highest level of European basketball) but apparently never personally took money to play (apparently it's against FIBA laws to sign a contract before age 18, and he's 17 now). The old NCAA rules would have suspended him for a game for each match he played with pros (I don't know if the soccer rule is the same). The new ones would allow him to play immediately. College soccer is not likely to recruit anyone as good as Kanter (this kid broke Dirk Nowitzki's record for scoring at the Nike Hoop Summit, and was in line for a lucrative contract offer from Fenerbache by European Basketball standards, probably high six figures, but turned it down to play for Kentucky). But it will allow soccer to begin recruiting--presumably immediately--guys who've played in academies with pros, whether they are from Europe or the US, without penalty, as long as they themselves have not signed contracts. Right now, the infrastructure (mixed pro-am teams) doesn't exist for many Americans to be plucked this way right away, but I bet it's coming around the pike some time pretty soon. And there are a lot of Europeans crashing out of academies without being offered contracts who will leap at the chance for a free or subsidized college education in preference to playing semi-pro at some third division team, guys who still have some pretty darned good talent by US standards.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Fabulous news. I think this continues to be a very underrated story. Hopefully this will help to raise the standard of play in the NCAA and it will make the idea of a real MLS reserve division a much more palatable proposal. The vertical integration, I think, will help the academy-to-MLS route greatly.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies Now all that needs to happen is for the NCAA to adopt FIFA rules for soccer and we are all set. Enough of the time out and unlimited sub nonsense.
Re: NCAA Legislative Council Passes New Rule on Amateurism and Academies I agree this is important if read correctly. I see a little different view. I really don't care how it affects NCAA soccer being that I think it is an alternative route to professional success. Where I think this is huge is it eases the rightful path for elite youth to get professional training in professional environments, playing professional players without requiring all players to sign professional contracts thereby making players ineligible for NCAA. It now allows DA players to move to MLS youth academies to get the best training for the most # of yrs then at age 16-17-18 the fork in the road hits. MLS offers development contracts, full contracts or releases or the player continues and attends local college. The options are endless depending on the players skill and educational aspirations. We needed options and we just got options.