CSL has been spiraling downward since Gary Sparks died in 2016.
Cal South E-mail: "Welcome to the New Cal South!"
- Thread starter JB805
- Start date
CSL has been spiraling downward since Gary Sparks died in 2016.
CSL was the top league in Socal.
Better if CSL finds a way if for only to keep competition in the market. Right now, if you don't like your team in either league, you can tell them to kiss off and join the other league.
From north of LA, 9 clubs have switched over to SOCAL and I have heard of 3 more that are finishing up and will be announced soon. The majority of teams from Ventura County and Kern County will now play in SOCAL. The only reason that CSL was a preferred option for teams in this area is that all of the local teams were staying put. The incentive for teams to stay with CSL is gone. What reason is there?
I agree, but clubs are jumping ship really quick...just saw BOCA OC just joined
Aside from having a larger group of teams to play against- I don't see any good reason that a club should move to SoCal League.
Decision making is dominated by the mega clubs. They are understaffed. They add unnecessary games and travel.
But they have a cool logo and spent a bunch of money on canopies and field signs. So there's that I guess.
Is it less expensive for a club to run in SoCal vs CSL?
Decision making is dominated by the mega clubs. They are understaffed. They add unnecessary games and travel.
But they have a cool logo and spent a bunch of money on canopies and field signs. So there's that I guess.
Is it less expensive for a club to run in SoCal vs CSL?
Cal South CEO Terry Fisher on the “The Bear and the Ball” Podcast Episode #26 - Cal South
Found this podcast on Spotify that interviewed the CEO where he goes over the "New" Cal South and his thoughts on the landscape of youth soccer. Here's a recap:
- Starts by talking about "unfortunate" situation where former board president resigns and persuades a large number of Cal South players and families to go to SOCAL.
- CalSouth was founded in 1974 and has spent millions of dollars supporting the development of youth and adult soccer and everytime you look around a see a soccer field it's because CalSouth did it, started it and put the groundwork in to do it.
- Every player in youth soccer in Southern California should be playing with CalSouth and there was no reason to leave except for a few "greedy" club leaders who want to make all of the rules and don't want to follow simple traditions of 47 years. -A lot of clubs left were "bullied" to leave by SOCAL. He reiterates this point at least 3 times during the podcast. Nobody has invested the kind of money that CalSouth has into fields, players, coaching education, keeping you safe and making CalSouth easy to do business with and it's not fair to compare CalSouth to SOCAL.
- CalSouth created some of their problems in that they didn't always listen and were slow to move and didn't react quick enough.
- SOCAL doesn't have a state association, nobody to call with issues and doesn't have 35 staff members working like Cal South. Additionally, SOCAL doesn't have anyone directing referee development like Juan Guzman or doing coaching development courses like Steve Hoffman. CalSouth is making an investment in referees that is fully funded whereas SOCAL does not. SOCAL complain about referees but they don't pay a dime to help develop referees. The referees they find are outside of "the referee pool." CalSouth has also hired another person Diogo Gama from Sporting Club Portugal who will be oversight and development of modern ideas related to coaching, reorganization of competitions and looking at methodology. He doesn't know if SOCAL has a coaching development guy.
-CalSouth is listening with "bigger ears than dumbo". They removed district commissioners because it was a good governance model where you had a monopoly but not when you have direct competition. Now, they are just board members who will represent everyone and not just their districts.
-The analysis that CalSouth doesn't have the competition of SOCAL must be made by people who have their heads buried in the ground. CSL is just as good as SOCAL Soccer League. Not including ECNL teams, teams playing in SOCAL leagues are 2nd/3rd/4th teams of clubs. They aren't the top of the wagon and the idea that they are the best competition is "the great lie".
-SOCAL has made promises and broken promises in regards to: Rescheduling games, nonperformance of referees, no customer service that CalSouth provides. Side-by-side - CalSouth is better in every subject.
-They will have a list on their website comparing CalSouth to SOCAL and CalSouth will win with the value added.
-SOCAL's state cup ends at the state. You have regionals and nationals if you win a cup at CalSouth.
-CalSouth is working on camera systems and live streaming at most of their big playing sites. Coaches and refs can use it for education. Rolling out this summer and will be ready by September 2022.
-Talks about ODP program and how it's changed over the years. Says this program is as big as US Soccer.
That's the meat and potatoes of the 30 minute convo.
Found this podcast on Spotify that interviewed the CEO where he goes over the "New" Cal South and his thoughts on the landscape of youth soccer. Here's a recap:
- Starts by talking about "unfortunate" situation where former board president resigns and persuades a large number of Cal South players and families to go to SOCAL.
- CalSouth was founded in 1974 and has spent millions of dollars supporting the development of youth and adult soccer and everytime you look around a see a soccer field it's because CalSouth did it, started it and put the groundwork in to do it.
- Every player in youth soccer in Southern California should be playing with CalSouth and there was no reason to leave except for a few "greedy" club leaders who want to make all of the rules and don't want to follow simple traditions of 47 years. -A lot of clubs left were "bullied" to leave by SOCAL. He reiterates this point at least 3 times during the podcast. Nobody has invested the kind of money that CalSouth has into fields, players, coaching education, keeping you safe and making CalSouth easy to do business with and it's not fair to compare CalSouth to SOCAL.
- CalSouth created some of their problems in that they didn't always listen and were slow to move and didn't react quick enough.
- SOCAL doesn't have a state association, nobody to call with issues and doesn't have 35 staff members working like Cal South. Additionally, SOCAL doesn't have anyone directing referee development like Juan Guzman or doing coaching development courses like Steve Hoffman. CalSouth is making an investment in referees that is fully funded whereas SOCAL does not. SOCAL complain about referees but they don't pay a dime to help develop referees. The referees they find are outside of "the referee pool." CalSouth has also hired another person Diogo Gama from Sporting Club Portugal who will be oversight and development of modern ideas related to coaching, reorganization of competitions and looking at methodology. He doesn't know if SOCAL has a coaching development guy.
-CalSouth is listening with "bigger ears than dumbo". They removed district commissioners because it was a good governance model where you had a monopoly but not when you have direct competition. Now, they are just board members who will represent everyone and not just their districts.
-The analysis that CalSouth doesn't have the competition of SOCAL must be made by people who have their heads buried in the ground. CSL is just as good as SOCAL Soccer League. Not including ECNL teams, teams playing in SOCAL leagues are 2nd/3rd/4th teams of clubs. They aren't the top of the wagon and the idea that they are the best competition is "the great lie".
-SOCAL has made promises and broken promises in regards to: Rescheduling games, nonperformance of referees, no customer service that CalSouth provides. Side-by-side - CalSouth is better in every subject.
-They will have a list on their website comparing CalSouth to SOCAL and CalSouth will win with the value added.
-SOCAL's state cup ends at the state. You have regionals and nationals if you win a cup at CalSouth.
-CalSouth is working on camera systems and live streaming at most of their big playing sites. Coaches and refs can use it for education. Rolling out this summer and will be ready by September 2022.
-Talks about ODP program and how it's changed over the years. Says this program is as big as US Soccer.
That's the meat and potatoes of the 30 minute convo.
A few notes after listening to that:
Cal South's position: We want our monopoly back!
Eliminating District Commissioners in face of criticism of "not listening" to local clubs is ludicrous. Open voting for all Director seats is similar to allowing California and New York to vote in every US Senate election. The new bylaws permit 7 Directors (formerly known as District Commissioners). There are only 3 listed on the Cal South website.
Customer service -- office staff sometimes gives directions that are later negated by State Cup and/or Cal South BOD.
CS BOD violated its own bylaws at least twice: to place an unelected President in one case in an "Executive Session" (the details of which were never reported to the membership) and in resisting for months the membership election of another President voted in by the membership (another action that was taken in executive session).
There are entire years of BOD meeting minutes missing, and there is currently no one serving in the BOD office of Treasurer.
In short - years of arrogance and secret dealings led to their present situation.
And the kids and parents are caught in the middle of the battle.
CalSouth is the Blockbuster of Southern California soccer. “Willing” to adapt and take feedback now that it’s too late. Every real criticism that they have of SoCal is something that can be changed in a short amount of time. They think since they laid the groundwork that there should be loyalty to them which is Laughable.
SoccerFan4Life
PREMIER
I disagree. As a parent I want league consolidation so I don’t need to travel far away for fligjt 3 and 2 games. When my daughter was 7 we had to go from north oc to San Diego and also to Temecula for flight 3 games. Meanwhile CSL had 5 clubs within a 5 mile radius from my house. Consolidation makes sense.
RedCard
GOLD
Out of the 33 G05 teams in the NPL/Discovery bracket, only 2 have their "top" team in GA (LA Surf, West Coast and City SC) and 8 in ECNL (CDA Slammers, Blues, and Rebels have 2 teams each in NPL along with Beach and LAFC SCV [not including LAFC White since they are in Pasadena and not in the Santa Clarita Valley]) And I use the term "top team" loosely since some of them isn't that good in ECNL or GA.
Tudela, LASC, and Sporting San Diego are definitely the club's top teams as they have no ECNL or GA at all and they all finished the season with great records. There are 5 Legends teams but none are from the original Legends club, and the Temecula Valley Legends Elite team is a tough top team. And LAFC White which is nowhere near the ECNL club area.
They should have mentioned that one governing body didn’t open as soon as the other during COVID. I’d wager that’s near the top of the reasons for the early club defection to SoCal… return to play.
ECNL was huge for US Soccer to get a jump for the SoCal league. These were the mega clubs and they had every secondary team switch to SoCal. CalSouth has always been associated with USYS, which is still big in other states, but not so much in California. One interesting fact is GA has an agreement now with USYS with GA being the premier league for USYS. If CalSouth wants to rebound, they need to boost GA to some existing CSL clubs as well as work on getting secondary teams from existing GA clubs back to CalSouth.
It is possible that if CalSouth ups their game, giving more benefits, gets GA clubs, that we could see growth there again, which might force US Soccer to up their game as well. All of this would be great for youth players. Good fair competition that gives more value to players and parents is good for California soccer.
It is possible that if CalSouth ups their game, giving more benefits, gets GA clubs, that we could see growth there again, which might force US Soccer to up their game as well. All of this would be great for youth players. Good fair competition that gives more value to players and parents is good for California soccer.
I believe USYS was upset at GA for not joining ELITE 64 and is no longer supporting them. I don't see how that helped them, creating more enemies instead of working with them. They should have have worked with GA and MLS Next to create a competitive platform. If MLS Next Clubs moved to Calsouth, that's a huge group of teams because boys have more teams. Then work with supporting small clubs to help them survive as long as they continue to stay Calsouth/USYS. However, CalSouth and USYS are letting their emotions guide them rather than solutions. Too bad because good competition creates better opportunities for the kids.
It's also creating a huge division among the second level talent outside of the MLS Next, rather than aggregating it to promote strong competition. On the boys end ENCL boys, EA, the new Elite 64, Coast Premiere/Gold, SoCal NPL. You have these weird situations as a result where a handful of teams in each of these (such as from Anaheim PDA or Socal Elite in my son's age group) can stomp over the second level competition in any of these, and can even give the MLS Next teams a run for their money.
SoCal Elite will be playing EA next season. They deserve it. Great coach and great players.
June 5, 2023
Official Announcement: Terry Fisher Steps Down as Cal South CEO
Dear Cal South Community,
We hope this message finds you well. We wanted to inform you of an important leadership transition at Cal South. Effective May 26, 2023, Terry Fisher stepped down from his position as CEO of Cal South.
During his tenure, Terry worked collegially with Cal South’s Board of Directors on various initiatives and challenges. We extend our appreciation for his time at the organization.
As we move forward, we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and maintaining the positive momentum Cal South has achieved post-Covid.
In the meantime, we are confident in the strength and talent of our team. We remain committed to our core values, our goals, and in delivering exceptional services and products to our valued customers.
We understand that transitions can sometimes be challenging, but we firmly believe that it also presents an opportunity for growth and positive change. We appreciate your continued support during this time.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me directly. The Board and I will do our best to address your questions promptly.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to Cal South’s success. Together, we will navigate this transition and build an even stronger future.
Best regards,
Nick Webster
President, Cal South Board of Directors
calsouth.com
Official Announcement: Terry Fisher Steps Down as Cal South CEO
Dear Cal South Community,
We hope this message finds you well. We wanted to inform you of an important leadership transition at Cal South. Effective May 26, 2023, Terry Fisher stepped down from his position as CEO of Cal South.
During his tenure, Terry worked collegially with Cal South’s Board of Directors on various initiatives and challenges. We extend our appreciation for his time at the organization.
As we move forward, we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and maintaining the positive momentum Cal South has achieved post-Covid.
In the meantime, we are confident in the strength and talent of our team. We remain committed to our core values, our goals, and in delivering exceptional services and products to our valued customers.
We understand that transitions can sometimes be challenging, but we firmly believe that it also presents an opportunity for growth and positive change. We appreciate your continued support during this time.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me directly. The Board and I will do our best to address your questions promptly.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to Cal South’s success. Together, we will navigate this transition and build an even stronger future.
Best regards,
Nick Webster
President, Cal South Board of Directors
Official Announcement: Terry Fisher Steps Down as Cal South CEO - Cal South
Dear Cal South Community,We hope this message finds you well. We wanted to inform you of an important leadership transition at Cal South. Effective May 26, 2023, Terry Fisher stepped down from his position as CEO of Cal South.During his tenure, Terry worked collegially with Cal South’s Board of...
calsouth.com