US Club Soccer vs. US Youth Soccer

Similar here in South Carolina. The USYS leagues all cancelled but the US Club leagues are still holding out for completion into the summer. NO decisions should be made until at least May 1st, with a lot of areas phasing into re opening.

 

So in our IYSA meeting a few days ago the reps online stated that their thoughts were June 1st but that they were not coming out with that - they were relying on national decisions and those of govenors. That's why they typically update the soccer start date after the fed announces.

So based on that, there is not much time for a season.

I am also hearing that a lot of coaches, DOCs and programs in general are not being flexible at all. Most of these people schedule summer vacations - it's their down.

 

We haven't cancelled the state season yet. But I'm kind of expecting it. Even if practices can start May 1 (not a guarantee), you'd have to give teams 2 weeks at minimum to get ready for the first game (my opinion of course).

HS pre-season starts the second week in July (right after dead period). Now, maybe you do a couple friendlies and go right into State Cup. But is that worth it?

 

I was hoping this would be more of a debate on why we need both organizations.

 

There is not really a need for both. Someone saw an opportunity to make money so they started IS Club.

 

I'm not sure why there is a need for both?

What we need is a more streamlined process for players, all around. Registration. Transition from club-to-club or league-to-league. It's completely unnecessary to have so many hoops for it all.

Do other countries say, "we need a competing organization that shows players how they can play, where they can play, and who's the better organization?"

 

It has been my experience that, when the question is "Why don't they..." (as in, "Why don't they just have one organization"), the answer is almost always either "money" or "power"....and very often both.

The reality is, there IS no reason to have both US Club and USYSA, other than they want a way to make more money and have more control over the game. That's it.

 

I would counter this with...the reason both exist in the US is because a group wasn't happy with the other. And, I get it.

Doing work with youth and adult across US Club and USYSA/USASA. I get it. It's a mess all the way around. Most of this stuff should be handled by one organization: USSF.

An example: why isn't there an online player portal from USSF like there is for coaches? Why can't I go online and register my child for a league or leagues? Why is there multiple organizations, even when they are affiliated with each other that still require multiple registrations? If I move, I should be able to just go into the portal to switch it over to a new state, league, and club.

Sorry, if that sounds confusing. It's much easier talking about in person. In the end, US Club and USYSA registration still goes through USSF. No one should have to register twice.

 

But that "unhappiness" is basically just, "I don't like the way they're doing things and want to control it myself so that we can do things the way I think they should be done."

I'm actually not advocating for the approach that either takes, as I have no idea what spurred the creation of US Club 20 years ago. All I know is, it makes things overly complicated (as you mentioned) and doesn't do anything to actually serve the players, which is what it should all be about in the first place.

 

Yes yes!

I would love to see one portal for kids to sign up...

1. Enter your zip code - here's a list of rec and travel clubs near you.
2. Select travel/rec.
3. If Travel pick up to 5 clubs and set up a try out date (You could expand the search zone or add specific clubs).

Portal could be centralized for schedules, kits, information for players, parents and coaches.

Organization could run refs - referals for field maintenance and more.

This would put vendors in competition with one another and hopefully drive down some costs.

The amount of administrative overhead this would remove would be huge for many clubs. Of course they would pay the organization to manage this but that would be a fraction of what they are paying today.

I would extend Kits for 3-4 years as well. Reduce costs for lower end teams with daddy coaches and less training. Institue a playoff between USClub and USYouth - ECNL and GA/MLS. Good hype there for sure.

 

No. It's bad. There are so many issues. Did you know some states don't have anything for adults? Specifically from one state, "why would we have an adult soccer association when we don't have any adults playing?"

Another state has two people who operate the adult soccer organization, no social media, no website, and operate the organization via aol email accounts. Zero response of anything. I can give the same on youth as well, it's no better.

It's justified unhappiness. So many people aren't doing anything in some of these positions.

I mean, some of this stuff exists from the league or club prospective. I would definitely not give the Federation full control over EVERYTHING like this. It's not hard to reduce a lot of these costs (like kits and club management). The problem often lies in clubs look at making changes and there's a lot of negative feedback initially. When that feedback happens, the club either withdraws the changes, or returns back to "how it's been done."

I was the president of a club recently for 2.5+ years. We made some big changes. Yes, there was some negative feedback initially, but we held firm and everyone adjusted it was rather simple. We turned our apparel into an online service where there was no money being exchanged like previous. Parents could order whatever sizes and products they wanted when they needed them.

It's not that hard really.