Penalty Kicks Stink
SILVER ELITE
Heard all the Surf affiliates will report under the new Surf OC
West Coast/Surf OC
- Thread starter SimpleSoccer
- Start date
BarcaLover
SILVER
Negative Ghost Rider
Keepermom2
GOLD
For nonprofits it isn't about what they call a fee it is about how it is disbursed that can cause an issue with their nonprofit status generally speaking. Nonprofits have management expenses such as attorney fees, accountants, insurance, administrative staff etc.
Dos Equis
GOLD
Would require disclosure on the following year tax form if they are executives, board members or have any say on prior or merged club policy/operations. These are publicly available, the trick is to know the actual legal name of the tax-exempt organization if you want to find it. But paid positions in tax-exempt organizations are common (the NFL was one until recently, as are the NCAA bowl games, all with executives making large salaries).
Truth is most tax-exempt youth sports clubs have volunteer boards with no ownership and little to no (and sometimes, after donations, negative) cash compensation. The youth clubs that do not have boards and are run by one or more DOC's -- they are often run more as a business to make money. A bit ironic, but mostly true.
Thanks for the detailed information.
jpeter
PREMIER
Another shell game is to hide "investment money" cash or assets, when you look at the books of some of the organizations... have $1m+ each year surplus that they invest is some asset so they don't appear to be making a profit. But guess what the people making those investments are making money on those, that's why you see investment bankers, lawyers, and financial people heavily involved on the boards when they don't even have kids sometimes. Presidents of some of the clubs are investment bankers, why do you think that is?
The other big money makers are tournaments, some directors are pulling is 6 figures " running" them, so how do you get to be a tournament director? Work for a club that has one and you can get some extra "side work". The tournament is it's own non profit or profit organization that you don't see in the normal club financials. There are other ways that these non-profit are disguising what's really going on but that's another topic.
I was on the local soccer club board when we re-organized from an elected Registrar who was paid a small fee (about $3-$5) for every registration or transfer processed to a hired admin who was paid a set fee every month and was expected to do all that as part of her duties. And of course we also paid all the coaches with extra pay for the Directors.
My wife is a member of a large professional non-profit that pays its elected officers nothing (but does cover their normal business expenses) and employs a paid Executive Director with a permanent staff of at least 3 people.
My daughter works for a non-profit that provides training and conference services for smaller professional organizations. I believe they have a couple of dozen employees overall.
Presidio League has no paid employees, but in the past they used to pay fees or stipends to board members when they did specific tasks, such as rescheduling games.
Surf Cup Sports Inc, which is a separate entity from San Diego Surf Soccer Club, appears to have only one full-time employee, who is paid well. It aappears they may have changed their name and organizational structure recently, or have spun off a new non-profit.
jpeter
PREMIER
How do politicians get paid back? Appointments, favors, influence, future assests in early angel investment opportunities, etc.
People on both side of this equation will be making $. The WC people now have a bigger tournament, more teams, more revenue with the surf name, surf makes more $ overall. Pretty easy to see why these merged happen.
Non profit is the USA needs a major overall but nobody has yet been bold enough to challenge all the religious billion dollar money makers and other who disguise themselves as nonprofits when they're really businesses.
The answer are corporations that are for "public benefit". No reason to play games and hide the "non-profit" money for organizations that are operating as businesses.
Dos Equis
GOLD
Take a look at a 990 form or, better yet, be responsible for filling one out and signing it -- investment income must be disclosed, and lack of disclosure would be illegal. You can point to a tax-exempt board/club that is engaged in this activity, unless you are just speculating.
Also, a board member earning any form of compensation, even through services, would be covered by the law as well, as that represents a potential conflict of interest and could result in a loss of tax-exempt status. If there is no disclosed income on their forms, essentially what you are claiming is that these people are not just being unethical, but potentially violating the law.
You see investment bankers, lawyers and tax/accounting people on these boards because 1) just like most parents, they care about their kids and want to be involved, and 2) because our tax law and regulations are quite complex, as are the liability issues and other legal pitfalls when working with children and their parents, boards often have to rely on people with legal, accounting, tax and financial backgrounds to make sure they comply with the law and to reduce their risk. Frankly, I would not recommend being on any youth board without at least one person with that background involved, even if you have D&O insurance.
Most of these people have a lot more income and careers to risk than any financial gain they would receive by trying to use a youth soccer program to make a few thousand $. Do a few club admins and others make money at clubs? Yes, and they work pretty damn hard for that money.
Tournaments are another thing entirely, crticize those all you want, but educate yourself before you make accusations like this against such a broad group of people who are mostly making club soccer more accessible and affordable for everyone.
jpeter
PREMIER
I have taken a look at some 990's that some clubs have sumbitted in previous years because I was interested in how there where spending 3m+ or more in revenue for example and what I found surprised me. 800k-1M+ in cash, investments as a assest each year. Who's managing those investment? Just happens to be a firm or individuals tired directly or indirectly to the club like the president for example. No speculation or need to, it's all there simple. If you don't think there are conflicts in interests maybe your just too naive to realize what really going on with all the mergers, afflicates, and shell games.
People are inriching themselves through youth sports, a $4+ billion dollar industry just like the nbcsports expose by Bryant Gumbel pointed out.
Club soccer is not affordable for a large segment of the population so what are you talking about? How is it more affordable and why? I have yet to hear or talk to anyone that claims club soccer is more affordable because of a tournament. More money, time, travel, hotel stays cost families more$ to play in these tournament.
I am not so naive that I just believe someone posting on the internet. Which clubs are you referring to?
Dos Equis
GOLD
Name the club. Link the 990. Which president and which investment firm? It is public information, so you are not prohibited from doing so.
I was the one who mentioned the conflict of interest, and the requirement there be policies in place. Ask a club if they have one (that is your right), and let us know which do not.
Bryant Gumbel works for HBO, and his segment was mostly about sports tourism and the increased travel requirements and the money being made on youth sports by those who control the travel and the large venues. As I said, criticize tournaments all your want, but very few clubs control the venues and/or large tournaments. Do Surf, Legends, PDA, and Players -- yes. See, that is called naming some names. The people who control SilverLakes -- they are indeed in it for money, otherwise that venue would never have been built, as it required lots of money and a promised return on that investment.
Back up your accusations with some facts. Or put on your tin foil hat and go back to your occupy wall street friends, and stop implying a large number of youth soccer club board volunteers are angaged in nefarious activities and enriching themselves.
This is an interesting article on the costs of running a club and how the potential for government regulations to increase those costs (i.e.- W2 employees va independent contractor status)
https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...ay-the-complexity-of-high-cost-youth-soc.html
https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...ay-the-complexity-of-high-cost-youth-soc.html
Keepermom2
GOLD
The article was really good. The only thing that really doesn't make sense is the increased cost from switching an employee from contractor to W2 employee. The increased cost should only be about 8% of salary for the payment of employer portion taxes and a couple days of sick pay. Either he is looking at the line items wrong (i.e. taxes paid to government include taxes deducted from employee salary) or they didn't take the option of exempting the employee from having to provide them medical insurance and the like. 50% to 60% increase makes no sense whatsoever.
Maybe they had to pay them more now that they were being taxed?
Were they able to get away without paying workers comp when they were 1099? Other insurance?
Were they able to pay them hourly? Or could they be a salaried employee? If a coach works at a tournament and puts in more htan 8 hours, then OT is needed while working in California. There are some new laws regarding salaried employees needing to be earning a certain minimum amount (has to do with employers skirting the overtime laws).
And were they paid on a per team basis, per hour basis or is there some other type of calculation they could use?
Dos Equis
GOLD
That article/interview is excellent. This might help on the increase in costs. In my expereince, without providing healthcare and with less than 50 employees, the number was/is actually closer to 15%.
How terrific it is that our state, the CA EDD, makes sure that youth clubs bear the burden of enforcing tax payments by coaches through a W2 process, and does not let them go with 1099's so the coaches are responsible. Still wondering why clubs need lawyers and financial professionals on their boards?
Back on topic, there are many questions raised by this rumored merger, there are many interesting issues created, and there is a larger conversation this fits into on what is happeneing to elite youth soccer in this country, mostly driven by the mandates and increased role of US Soccer. I wold be interested in thoughts on those topics.
Not_that_Serious
GOLD
Galaxy? Right in which way? Galaxy has done the same thing taking over clubs with high enrollment just to get a presence out. Better than the day were they would slap a logo on big tournament winners. OC Galaxy is almost an afterthought. They basically went around plucking Flight 2 kids and promising parents Flight 1 spots - so many played out of their level or didnt even make Flight 1. Many of the teams they have barely can field a team. During their tournament in OC some teams had no subs or playing 1 man down. Some of the teams were getting beat by not very good Matrix teams - believe even 1 got beat by a bad plus team. Seen them have to guest play kids from higher flight to lower flight so the team doesnt get hammered. The lower flight team won but then the higher flight team gets beat badly because they guessed some decent players. Top Galaxy teams in other areas are competitive, but the lower flights tend to be there for marketing. Not the right way to do things in my opinon. Some parents only see "LA Galaxy" and proudly post to other parents "My child plays for LA Galaxy". Club takers are a fast way to get numbers, but really the right way? usually not
First, they aren’t a DA program, so they don’t have that advantage. I’m merely talking about a name change. Their attempt at being under the slammers brand didn’t work very well. They have the youth rec program which cultivates and feeds players into their system. Many of their flight 1 teams are competitive, especially the olders. Yes, they are oversaturated with teams, but OC is saturated with club soccer. I’m not talking about the quality of their program. I’m talking about the transition from one club name to another.
Let’s be honest there’s a huge chunk of kids all over the map that don’t really belong in club soccer. It isn’t like it used to be 20-25 years ago.
You are right, it isn't the same, it is better. If the goal is to be better as a nation at soccer, we need more kids playing soccer. The more kids that play soccer and develop a passion for a game the bigger the pool of talent.
The people who lament the current state of soccer versus times past are a curious bunch. Does somehow a kid that isn't great being on "club" soccer somehow diminish what you did 20-25 years ago? The "lets move everybody that isn't great to rec" angle is stupid. The kids are having fun. They are making friends. They are getting exercise and they are staying out of trouble. These are wins. More kids in competitive soccer, not less.
Dos Equis
GOLD
Versus twenty years ago (some of us are old enough to remember), we have
1) more large venues, closer to where we all live;
2) better quality fields, on average;
3) more professional, educated and better quality coaches,
4) more opportunities for players at every level (club, rec, AYSO, DA)
5) more kids playing soccer
I could tell you about a 9 year old girl who wanted more than AYSO select/extra, a mere 12-13 years ago. No club would respond to her inquiries, she went to the two tryouts that were within 30 minutes from her home, was treated like an outsider and unwelcome, and did not make it on any of the very small number of teams that existed at that time. Fortunately, she stuck with it and made a newly formed club team the following year -- which was around the time clubs in our area started expanding team counts and offered club soccer to younger age girls. If that expansion had not occured, I highly doubt she would have been able to break into what seemed a closed system with pretty fixed rosters. With luck, her college soccer career will last a few more weekends.
Club soccer in our area used to be very exclusive, more controlled by the volunteer parent coaches with kids on the teams, much less of a meritocracy, with little to no transparancy and accountability. It may not be perfect, but it has vastly improved. Some of the "old guys" lament the days when Socal clubs had one team per age group, travelled the country, and beat up on everyone. But the more honest "old guys" admit that, at least on the girls side, a top college team from the early-mid 90's would have a hard time beating today's top U16 club teams.