This isn’t about a tweet from Glenn. Look at the bigger picture. NC Courage coach Sean Nahas is also the GNT U15 coach. Courage pulled out of DA and went back to ECNL. Cindy Parlow Cone is connected to Courage as well. Why would Courage pull out of DA with a National team coach on staff and one of their own at the helm of US Soccer? Conspiracy theorists would say they knew something was coming and wanted to be in front of it rather than behind it and get the best deal for their club before the mad rush to get back in to ECNL began.
Look at other soccer blogs from other states. Other states are hearing the same thing. I don’t think Glenn Crooks has that many followers to ignite a national panic about DA and it’s future andMLS clubs are being unusually quiet.
Here’s what I think. US Soccer settles the lawsuit with the WNT out of court in the next month or so. Part of that settlement is that US Soccer has to financially prop up the NWSL, pay NWSL players more and even out the pay scale for the NT’s. Even though US Soccer has a reserve, they are poorly run as a whole. The DA admin staff are worse than those above them. The settlement is going to be big and cost US Soccer most of its reserves on top of needing to cut a hefty amount out of their budget. What a better way to do this than cut an unsuccessful program (and I would argue it’s been unsuccessful on both the boys and girls side), cut the staff that are over their heads anyways and save themselves the hassle of running a program they have no business running while redirecting the funds to plug the hole in the bottom of the NWSL boat and shut up Rapinoe.
Ultimately, GDA started because Jill Ellis wanted equality on the girls side creating a program for the girls that modeled the boys program (which was dumb) and taking away the high school component that Is important to the girls. Now the GDA dissolves because of the WNT crying for equality in pay and support of their pro league which redirects funds from one gender equality program in to another.
It’s not a bad thing. Boys DA was doing nothing to help the MNT. They are still horrible and struggle. Girls DA wasn’t needed. ECNL was doing a great job getting girls in to college and on to the WNT.
Last comment, even if this wasn’t about the money US Soccer realizes they’ve done a piss-poor job managing both DA programs. It’s time to cut their losses and get out.