One USYS State President's Take on the Changing Landscape of Youth Soccer

Well, I think that about sums up USYSA's opinion of the Super Y League. I can see why they didn't post it on their site with such strong language about "undermining" and being the organization of integrity and fair play.

 

Oh god, these amateur fifedoms care nothing about growing the game here in the U.S. What always kills me is that if the game took off associations like these would be flooded with participants since only a select few players from each area would make it and these organizations could easily coexist with professionally affiliated ones.

This just lends more credenct to Dan's argument that professional clubs are going to have to step in to maximize the development of our players. These amateur associations don't care about growing the game, they're only concerned with their little fifedoms.

 

Just when you thought USSF couldn't screw up Youth Soccer any worse, they go and top themselves.

For far too long, USSF enforced the USYSA monopoly on all yoputh players and organizations in the US. If you didn't hold a USYSA player pass, you simply couldn't play. Anywhere, for anybody, any time.

As a result, the Regional heirarchies ran roughshod over the Clubs, forcing them to comply with idiotic rules designed for local Rec Leagues but not at all applicable for Premier level teams.

When the clubs tried, repeatedly and respectfully, to suggest some changes, they were simply dismissed. USYSA and the Regioanl Directors had total control over Rec, travel, tournaments and the ultimate prize, ODP.

So then along came the whole Frank Marcos/USL/SuperY scam, and their pals over at US Club Soccer, all with the tacit approval of USSF, who thought they were "opening up" the process.

All they've done is take a bad situation and made it ten times worse. Instead of changing a few rules, there now ARE no rules, and all these organizations are bending over backwards to give the clubs permission to do whatever they please, whenever they please because if they don't, they'll bolt and take their clubs, their players and their money elsewhere.

The mess is only getting worse, and I fear that the inmates are now running the asylum.

A pox on ALL their houses.

 

Bill - What would you like to see the Fed do, or otherwise how would you like it to be set up?

 

Well, I don't have a bunch of time at the moment, but that's a fair question so let me try;

The major piece of the lawsuit the players brought against MLS and USSF was that USSF unfairly designated one league (MLS) as the sole Division I league in America, thus illegally stifling competition for players and thereby keeping salaries low.

The Defendants argued, and rightly so, that in no country on Earth is there TWO Division I soccer leagues sanctioned by the FIFA member organization (USSF) and, additionally, pointed out how little sense this would make in a country like the US where soccer is a relatively minor sport to begin with.

So we fast forward a few years and USSF has sanctioned two different organizations (US Club Soccer and USYSA) for purposes of registering players.

What was good for them is apparently a bad idea for everybody else.

So now we have two parallel tracks, two sets of National Youth Championships, AND Super Y League thrown in for good measure.

(In my area of the country, USYSA has virtually ceased to be a meaningful participant in upper level youth soccer. Thier arrogance, greed and stupidity had pissed everybody off to such an extent that, when the opportunity to register elsewhere came up, the clubs deserted them in droves.

Their new solution? They're trying to set up ANOTHER LEAGUE)

In fact, the latest Super Y plan, the "selection weekend: will take place in September and October, during the High School year. Super Y blithely says that "players will be excused from scholastic soccer"

My response: "Says who??"

Now I'm no big fan of High School soccer in general, but their arrogance has reached colossal proportions and will put young kids in one hell of a bind: get thrown off of your HS team or miss ODP.

In answer to your question, it's time USSF stepped in and cleaned up the mess they've created. Design a sane, sensible youth soccer structure that works for ALL levels. Redesign ODP and remove the politics (instead of adding MORE as they've now done). Sanction ONE organization to register and card youth players.

It ain't rocket science.

 

Question

Karl -

Thank you for sending along that item.

As is customary with organizational writings, it is difficult to parse the argument.

OK, Gus Bender doesn't like having competitors. Who does? And OK, they recruit "his" kids ... gosh darn it, that's what competitors do.

But otherwise, what's his point? He says that his organization stand for fair play, integrity, apple pie, Mom, Chevrolet, and the American flag. Thereby implying that the other guys do not. But where is the support for this argument? How, exactly, is USYSA superior?

To mix metaphors, I never found the beef.

 

Absolutely fair question, Karl.

In regards to "politics" in youth soccer, I've been listening to people whine about "politics" for years now, anmd it usually means that my kid got passed over for something and it can't be because he's not good enough.

Nevertheless, what I think happened here is the baby got thrown out with the bathwater.

USSF split the deal the wrong way. Or rather, encouraged others to do it.

Recreational, Saturday morning "sandbox league" U-littles has absolutely nothing in common with Beadling SC or Vadar III. So let's have a seperate organization that deals with those issues.

Then let's have ANOTHER to deal with the needs and concerns of the upper level clubs. This sort of "horizontal" (if you will) split makes a lot more sense than the current "vertical" one which has led to what I see as unhealthy competition between coaches fighting over too few skilled players.

USSF ought to pay more attention to how the regions are run, and spend a little less time glomming onto free tickets and buffet lines and a little more dealing with the nuts and bolts instead of ignoring it, or worse, foisting it off on somebody else whose only motive is profit.

 

Super y league learns from their mistakes. Only 2 years ago they tried to hold finals over Labor day weekend. Many high school coaches refused to release their players. Super Y blasted the coaches...then changed finals to earlier the next year.

 

... except that they (Super Y) have announced that starting in 2004, the extend the season through the fall and have finals in November. That ought to endear them to the high schools.

 

Simple Question

Karl, Sue, anybody -

As an outsider (U10 parent, so my kid is too young for this stuff) I don't fully get this USYSA vs. Super Y battle. OK, I understand that they are competing for the same kids/dollars, that part makes sense.

But what I don't understand is, what is the "deficiency" in USYSA that enables Super Y to exist? I write "deficiency" in quotes because I am neutral on whether this is an actual deficiency or merely a perceived deficiency. But either way, there clearly seems to have been some gap with USYSA services that Super Y has exploited in establishing its competitive position.

Yes, I know that Super Y has an alternative ODP scouting system. Lots of press on that. But surely that can't be the reason for the league's existence, or even the primary justification. There must be something else going on that I don't understand.

 

John - I think basically the top clubs want to have the optimal competitive experience, and they feel that USYSA restrictions have kept them from doing this, by placing too much red tape around travel opportunities and thus forcing the teams to be involved in lower quality leagues in their proximity.

To compete in the Snickers Cup (state, regional and national) , a club has to compete in a state-sanctioned league. This tends to get these top clubs playing a good number of blowouts, both in the league and the early rounds of their State Cups. Coaches at the top clubs would prefer to have their teams traveling a bit farther so they can play the other heavies in a four or five state area (depending on where they are).

Now US Club and Super Y have given something of an alternative as far as high-level league play and a regional and national cup competition. A lot of the top clubs now are talking openly about forsaking their state cup competition,s aying the US Club event will be better top to bottom anyway. That part of this is still developing - these regional events start next month.

Within USYSA, there seems to be some division over whether to accomodate the larger clubs or to hold the line. The stereotype is that administrators, rather than soccer people, make most decisions within state associations, and so the soccer people want out. That is too simplistic but it does cover part of the problem.

It seems like you could end up with a top level travel tier and an intermediate group. In effect you already have that, but it may be that each ends up with their own organization. Time will tell.

 

Super Y vs. USYSA

GersMan -

OK, I get it. Top clubs are tired of being Rangers or Celtic and playing Motherwell. Super Y comes and says, "We've got a better idea. Only play the other big clubs, forget Dundee and Hearts."

Sounds a lot like what the big clubs in Europe are angling for -- the Group of 18 or whatever they're called.

 

Karl, thanks for posting this thought-provoking thread.

GersMan, thanks for explaining the core issues concisely. As a fan of the youth national teams and college soccer, I have a vested interest players are identified and developed but because I don't have kids in youth soccer - and things have changed A LOT since I played - I don't have much of an understanding about how that happens.

Therefore, I never quite got what all the fuss was about in the battle betweey US Club/Super Y and USYSA. Now I do.

JohnR, excellent analogy. The comparrisons to the Scottish League is very good, assuming I'm understanding the issues correctly.

Now, a couple of questions.

*Does either USYSA or US Club/Super Y prevent the top clubs - Delco, Irvine Strikers, Chicago Sockers, etc.. - from playing in both competitions. I mean, can a player on Busch SC play in his Missouri-sanctioned league and in the Snickers Cup tournaments AND play for a US Club Super Y title?

*If a player is playing for a team that plays US Club/Super Y, can he still be an ODP player in his state even though that is basically run by USYA-affiliated folks?

*Does US Club/Super Y have an ODP system of their own (not necessarily called "ODP")? Do they have regional teams?

*If so, now that they have recognition is US Soccer choosing players for the youth national teams, and I'm talking as low as the U14 teams - from the US Club/Super Y pool? (Because if the only way to get to the youth national team is through USYSA ODP, that's an inherent advantage towards USYSA.)

*What about costs and identifaction nx turning over more rocks? This is probably more of a tangental issue than one directly related to this set of one directly related to the competition between USYSA and US Club/Super Y, but is anything happening with either program to make the costs of ODP less daunting for economially disadvatnaged families or families who on the surface are OK financially but don't have much extra cash because they pay for silly things like college tuition, cars, mortgages and grocieries. Is ODP in either system still a pay-for-play deal? Is either group trying to encourage more inner city and Latino players to get involved and giving them incentive to do so?

*Back to the problem with the US Club/Super Y tournament going into the HS season - is still really a big issue? I know it is for the HS coaches, but don't most elite players put HS soccer of the backburner? Don't they have the leverage with their HS coaches - I'll play, but I'm going to miss X amont of games (not to be confused with the X-Games!) with the club that is more responsible for my development and more likely to get me to the next level? Or, has HS soccer improved in importance and quality of late?

I know these are a lot of questions, thanks for the answers.

 

Flaw i see in the travel aspect

It's great SuperY wants to play the best teams in the 4 or 5 state area or whatever. Who is going to pay for all the hotels and travel? If it's the parents, plus a monthly fee probably for the program itself.

I think some kids get left out.....although this sounds like a great idea, I think it's fatally flawed. You would most definately have very good players left out, just because of cost.

Cost alone of travel makes it a rich kids game...that's wrong. The fact that in Washington we have 5 hour drives to some games already, which becomes a weekend of at least $300 to $400 dollars for players to stay the night. Play fares , longer drives, don't really make up for what they say will be better competition.

I guess if you drive or fly 600 miles and win 4-0...you'd really be happy with the so called better league? Maybe I don't get it, but I don't see the need.

 

I can help answer some of these because my son's team is a high level team that has been searching for the answer. His club just went the Super Y route.

Yes, the club CAN play in the USYSA sanctioned league, Snickers Cup and Super Y. The problem is that they don't WANT to play in the state sanctioned league because that's the Scottish league example -- 7 or 8 out of the 10 games are blowouts. However, what the state's have done is said that you have to be a participant in a USYSA sactioned league in order to be eligible to participate in the Snicker's Cup.

Therefore, the teams are forced to participate in competitions they'd really rather not do just so they remain eligible for State Cup.

So far, that has not been a problem because as I have stated in question 1 above, they're all still dual registering their teams. However, even if a team participated only in Super-Y, I think they'd still be eligible for the state's ODP teams. There are no prerequisites that I'm aware of to participating in the ODP process.

Here's the way I understand it -- not 100% sure this is correct. The only way to get into ODP at the STATE level is through the state's tryout / pool / evaluation process which is separate from any teams. What Super-Y has done is to hook up with the National / Regional ODP hierarchy so that kids within Super Y are evaluated in the Super Y environment and from those evaluations, a kid can get invited directly to the Regional camps via Super-Y. In the past, the only way to get invited to Regional camp was to be on your State ODP team and play in the Regionals.

MOST of the country still plays HS soccer separately from club soccer. There are only a handfull of states / regions where the clubs form teams year around and the players even get to choose between HS and club. I think that with Super Y moving to more of a year around calendar in the near future, more clubs are going to form year around teams.

However, it's not going to be like you've stated where an elite player goes to his HS coach and says, I'd like to play HS, but I'll miss X games. In many, if not most states, if you participate in a non-school team during the season, you are not eligible to play for the school team. There are some exceptions like when a kid makes the Regional ODP team and goes to Nationals -- i.e., an all-star team. But given that Super-Y is a year around team of the same players, I seriously doubt if the state HS assn's are going to consider playing for you Super Y club during HS season the same as playing for a National all-star team.

These kids are going to have to choose to play EITHER for the Super-Y team through the fall OR to stop playing Super-Y come mid August and play for their HS team.

 

... and, frankly, in some parts of the country, that will be a very difficult choice for kids to make. The assumption seems to be that the top kids - who are most interested in continuing on to Division I soccer - will stick with their club teams. However, many club teams are not made up of 20-25 kids ALL with this goal. For those decent-not-great players who are making up the numbers at their club, playing for their high school soccer team is a goal in itself (and then maybe moving on to Div III or NAIA in college).

Face it, high school soccer (currently) gets more attention in the local papers (and from your classmates) than playing for a club team. That's sort of important to a lot of teenagers.

 

Couple of Answers

Sandon -

Kevbrunton answered most of your questions.

To address the Inner City/Latino issue -

Hell, no.

Think of Super Y as a caricature of existing club soccer - even more suburban, even more $$, even more travel, etc. It's USYSA squared.

(Karl, feel free to disagree. It's not like I actually have first-hand knowledge on this subject. )

The high school thing is really intriguing - revolutionary, I'd say. Here and there, a very few clubs & players have bypassed high school ball. But not many. Even Freddy Adu played high school ball as a freshman, before he went to Bradenton.

To set up a league that would seem to be in direct competition with high school ball, and that would pull many -- if not most -- of the top players in the country out of the high school scene ... well, that's ambitious.

Although I have a hard time seeing that happen. But maybe.

 

No doubt that will take some cultural reform John, but the clubs will be the ones leading the way on that - telling players that this is the way to go. Sue is correct that for more than 90 percent of even the travel soccer community, if you tell parents their kids shouldn't play HS ball, you will be looked at like you told them they have to worship the devil, but for the truly elite clubs you're already seeing this and I think will see it more and more.

And high school programs shouldn't care. School sports will always have a certain place and if an area star or two are not playing, most people won't even know about it.

One other thing touching on Sandon's questions, USSF recently sent out a dictate to various parties to make it clear it would not tolerate any of its members (that is, Super Y, US Club, and USYSA) discriminating against one another,particularly regarding tournament pay. Each can still limit competitions to their own membership, as is done by USYSA for the Snickers Cups and US Club Soccer for their new National Cup, but if a given tournament accepts any non-member, it cannot prohibit another club from participating based on their having registered with the other organization. The example given was Dallas Cup, which has teams from overseas participating. So the USYSA, through its state association in North Texas, can't keep a team from US Club Soccer from participating.

Let me be clear I don't know that this happened with the Dallas Cup, I just heard it used as an example. I've seen the text of the memo.

So the Fed does seem to be trying to make some peace, although I don't expect any Camp David agreements anytime soon.

 

http://www.cysanorth.org/ODP/News/Memo region ODP.pdf

MEMORANDUM
From: John Murphy, Chairman
Re: Olympic Development Program Regional Teams
Date: March 5, 2003

It has recently come to our attention that some players have been mislead into believing that participation in CYSA’s State Olympic Development Program (ODP) tryouts are not necessary to be eligible for Regional ODP. The limited ODP authority granted the United Soccer League for that league’s Regional Select Teams is completely unrelated to the United States Youth Soccer (USYS) ODP
program. CYSA’s ODP program is part of the USYS ODP program, including USYS’s Regional ODP program. It has no connection whatsoever to any program of the United Soccer League or any of its affiliates or any other non-USYS program. Accordingly, failure to participate in CYSA’s state ODP tryouts will preclude a player from participation in USYS Region IV’s ODP program.

**********************
I felt this memo might be relevant to the discussions taking place on this thread. The chairman of CYSA-North wrote the memo.

*I thought Super Y had the power to get players included in the ODP Regional pools. Of course, even if the USL can get Super Y players into the regional ODP pool that doesn't mean they would be selected to play on the Regional team.

 

Re: Flaw i see in the travel aspect

squash

$$ are one of the reasons I have promoted MLS pro youth devlopment .

Gersman

I can attest to the above. It also applies to AYSO. I took an AYSO U19 team to the USA Cup awhile back with no problems (other than embarrassing several USYSA teams)

USYSA is getting it's come uptance for raiding all the AYSO players. :>)

US Club soccer will get it's when MLS put's youth teams on the field. :>) :>)))))

Ain't competition grand!

 

Yep, I didn't realize the SuperY folks were forming their own separate regional ODP teams starting in 2003.

 

It should be noted that U.S. Youth Soccer's regional OPD team's programs are probably its single strongest suit. They have built that up over time and have many top coaches as part of it, as well as a number of travel opportunities that are exceptional. Recently we've talked about Costa Rica and Brazil for 87s and 85 boys. I know some of the regional age group teams are going to Europe over Easter break.

You can argue that a league-based identification system is better, but the appeal of such travel opps (usually playing pro youth sides or national youth sides in Italy, Spain or France) is undeniable. This is where the USYSA resources come into play the most.

Now if we prefer to see the Fed get involved and unify everything - one would hope that it would incorporate the many good aspects of this program, including the more reform-oriented types in the state programs (hard to say how many of these there are).