Pay to play

What do you class as high prices?

It just seems like an excuse to me. Thousand of professional footballers had no money growing up, but they still played for a team. You live in Germany, I'm sure if you're desperate for this your parents could help you out. If not then get a job, save up and try then.

You talk the talk, but don't walk the walk it seems. Make it happen rather than moaning about it.

 

That may apply to Europe and South America but that doesn't hold true for the U.S.. Academies here cost $1800-$4000 per season or year, and then you have to pay a lot more for things like tournaments where you actually get recognized. There's plenty of players in the U.S. who are very talented but simply don't have the money and go unnoticed. They do give financial aid, but they're usually very reluctant to.

 

There are other expenses, but some of the MLS clubs USDA teams don't charge their players to play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Soccer_Development_Academy :
"The league is unique from other professional soccer leagues domestically, as it runs on a winter-based schedule. The season generally begins in September and ends in June or July. There's usually a hiatus in January and February while players have the summer off. Most of the clubs are associated with professional teams, either in North America through MLS, the NASL or USL Pro, or with European clubs. The professional teams cover most, if not all of the fees, while the academies offer a pipeline of talent to the professional club."

Wiki's aren't always accurate, but I have read elsewhere that some of the clubs don't charge the players to play.

 

So do you live in Germany or America? Because I'm confused now.

Most players don't get picked up by immediately going straight to professional clubs.

Isn't there a respective Sunday League available for you? It may seem a low standard on paper but if you play in the top divisions then scouts will come.

End of the day. You should play football because you love it. Not because you want to make a living out of it. If your motivation is to turn pro, that's great. But it shouldn't be your only motivation.

Join a team. It doesn't have to be a top class standard. Just get playing.

 

Just a ridiculous post.

I hate these coaches who think they're better than they are. If it's such a passion, why don't you coach for free?

You complain about prices - why not do something about it then?

You don't need top class facilities. If you have a grass pitch, concrete, tarmac, you have a place you can train.

I'm British. I come from an area that is largely working class. A brief lesson in history for you - football is a working class sport. It was designed for the industrial workers to play in their increasing spare time following the industrial revolution.

So why now do people insist on top class facilities and spending tons of money? it's just ridiculous.

You point out that it's cheap in Britain - which is accurate. I received really fantastic coaching from somebody paying around £3 a session. The coaches didn't try to pocket as much money as possible, they booked the place and spent the fees received on it.

And guess what? The English youth system is one of the strongest in the world. There's a similar system in Germany. And in Spain.

It doesn't cost a lot of money to become good at football. Look at Lionel Messi, Ronaldo, Aguero, Costa... All come from extremely poor backgrounds and they somehow made it. They didn't receive tons of expensive coaching until they were picked up by professional clubs.

They just played football. Joined an honest local team and played football as much as possible. And look where it's taken them.

Hate the corporation that certain people are encouraging in football now. Hate it.

 

Good post JEN14, but the football here in the US is way different than other parts of the world, and to be quite honest, one of the worst. I actually get a little jealous knowing there's a plethora of Sunday league teams in other countries haha. In the US they're really hard to find if you don't live in or around a really big city.

Also what's funny is the point Elessar78 (and in no way do I mean for this to be offensive) brought up how the big academies charge a lot for things like field costs. The fields they use are the same fields people play pick up on, and they're mostly garbage. Turf fields are very rarely football only. In fact, most of the games/practices are played on High School/University turf fields or public turf fields, both of which usually are payed by taxes or by the university. Same goes for things like lighting, parking, and transportation. So why would the academy be charging more for field maintenance costs when in fact they don't even own most of the pitches they play on? And most clubs in the U.S. make the parent or player sign something saying that any injury is their responsibility, or something along those lines to avoid the liability issue you brought up. Also about the large amount of players who go unnoticed, it's true. I actually know quite a few who could've played at a good academy if they had the money.

But I do agree that you don't need those big teams to become good. Just train hard, be consistent, and find somewhere to play. For me the problem is in Europe and South America the academies seem to want to make quality players, whereas here the academies are made to simply make money. Quite sad, but it's the truth.

 

...was a working class sport. You have the same problem we do in the US. Plus your working class has shrunk so a lot of the parents of the kids were not working class, did not play soccer, and are out there causing the same kind of grief that parents do here in the US. Here in the US, the large part of the kids playing in USSF affiliated leagues are in the suburbs and not working class. Their parents have money, so the soccer industry catering to them is immense, right down to soccer tournaments at resorts like Disneyland. Some of the non-USSF players are in what we used to call ethnic leagues (not just the Hispanic leagues) and get great training because they are in traditional soccer families and communities.

There are two reasons children of elite athletes often become elite athletes themselves. One is genetics, but more important imo is the training opportunities available from having athlete parents. The most important period of athletic development is before age 14. People who miss that development time are forever trying to play catchup to those that developed fundamental athletic skills at a young age.

 

His post violates the forum policy against personal attacks. I was offended and it wasn't even directed at me. Besides what he said doesn't make sense on its face (condeming a coach being paid $300 for an entire weekend coaching an entire team and praising a 3 pound per person per session fee)

The bottom line is that playing on elite teams in the US means being trained by professional coaches. Someone has to pay for the professional coaches. Being paid is the difference between amatuer and professional.

As for volunteer coaching, my experience was that there was always fathers coaching the boys teams who knew nothing about the game and they didn't want my assistance. They saw me as a threat to their authority, because I have playing, coaching and reffing experience. I think a professional coach would find parent-controlled rec soccer a very frustrating experience. I ended up coaching my daughter's teams for 3 years and never had the opportunity to coach my son's teams.

By the way, its been at least 7 years since I got a quote for a 3-man crew of officials--and it was $270 a match, which was a discount rate at the time. For the 15 years I managed a small club, referee fees were always more than field permit fees.

 

Academies here were thought up by bozo coaches that can't make any money doing something out side of soccer.

One of the first academies I saw for kids here in Brooklyn was started by a sign painter here who used to coach soccer in Russia.

He got poor emigrants to spend a thousand dollars on their kids. The so called academies had no start of money on their own.

Clubs here were original formed by soccer fantastics who owned their own businesses like restraunts and bars. They backed their clubs. Most of them paid their adult players.

Much later when they started youth teams they did not charge anything for those kids to play.

They did it for the love of the game not to make money for themselves.

 

I'm not breaking any rules.

I was unnecessarily aggressive, and for that I'm sorry. But for everything I've seen and read about football in the US, it's an absolute joke.

I'm a mediocre player, decent technically, terribly out of shape, very one footed, not that fast. But I was offered a 100% scholarship in Florida.

And guess what? I received very little professional coaching.

The US system is a joke like I said, English academies aren't great. But they churn out professional players that are stars in foreign leagues.

Long way to go yet before it's cost effective.

 

Well that college team must have really sucked. I think college soccer on 90 percent of their teams don't play a good game.

In fact I don't watch a lot of MLS because they don't play a good game in my eyes either.

I believe a lot of it has to do with the coaching. Most coaches here are American who don't spend a lot of time in Europe & South America watching teams train their players.

I also truly believe this no country plays a perfect game. So if you were lucky enough to live in these countries for years.

Is to take the best of each countries games that your in and make that game your game.

Recently I saw a fantastic balarina dance. She also teachers other dancers to dance like all dancers do. She told them when you watch another dancer dance take what you like and do that, and discard what you don't like about them.

That is the way I feel about coaching. Take the best that you like from a countries style and discard what you don't like.

I think that should be the US style not the way they are playing now.

 

on the super y it became the league to play in the 5 boroughs in NYC when it first started. Why, because ODP coaches were all located in Long Island. Most of their teams were made up from long island players. They took very few players from NYC. They may have looked at players from NYC but did not take them because their practices were held where the coaches were from long island.

ODP should have took a lot of those players because they were better back then. But tge coaches knew they could not get to long island for practice. They did not have the best teams what they had was the best players that they could get.

Our club had one of the first super Y teams. Get this you did not need an A licences to coach a super y team in the beginning. Then they decided to make an A licence mandatory to coach that team. Which meant I could not coach them. I have a B license but I could still coach my adult team.

Oh even on the super y team back then we did not charge any player to play. But we did put them under pressure to perform and work hard on the practice field if not they had no future with that team.