Champions League Results/Discussion
- Thread starter NoSouppForYou
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Keepermom2
GOLD
Depending on the neighborhood, high school is pay to play. I pay $600+$250 (fundraiser by asking people you know to donate on your behalf or you pay it) + $50 for spring coach for PE if you do not play another sport + $250 2 week summer camp (unspoken you need to go to make the team) + purchase of coat.
I don't know what high school that is, but if it is a public high school, just don't pay it.
Keepermom2
GOLD
It is a public school and not paying it isn't an option. I will leave it at that on this public forum.
The offended party won't even have to pay for a lawyer. There are lawyers who will take up this kind of easy-winner case on a pro bono publico basis.
Keepermom2
GOLD
Winning anything of substance against a public school is next to impossible and the fight isn't worth the potential outcome. Been there done that and got 2 separate and successful office of civil rights findings against the district related to my older daughter with little or no benefit except they are a little tiny bit fearful of me. Litigation in court is a pipe dream. To win anything of substance, they have to have done something so horrible that it would hit the news.
paytoplayisgood
SILVER
United States can't be the current clear cut #1 team in the world if boys soccer 20 years ago wasn't popular. You fail to realize that there are other sports in our country that are more popular
Did ECNL take down all of its standings info? The app shows blanks, and it looks like the website shows this past year’s schedules with results, but no standings?
Other sports shouldn't matter considering the US population (350 million) compared to the top 3 soccer countries.
1. Brazil (210 M) 2. Argentina (45 M) 3. France (70 M)
The pay to play system significantly reduces the US player selection pool, don't you think?
I totally agree that the letter league system reduces the player pool. Overpriced tournaments don’t help, either.
However, you can’t just ignore the popularity of football, baseball, and basketball. Many of the people who might have been great soccer players are currently wide receivers, short stops, or point guards. Nothing wrong with that, but it does change our odds of finally getting out of group at the world cup.
There are pathways for boys outside of the pay-to-play system. Think of the pipeline from clubs like TFA and LAUFA into MLS academies.
whatithink
GOLD
If it was just a question of population then China & India would be able to excel in every sport with 30%+ of the world's population between them. Conversely Belgium wouldn't be #2 in the world with <12M pop., or Denmark wouldn't be in the top 10 with <6M population.
The last one is a good case in point. Denmark has a smaller population than AZ. Soccer is the most popular sport. It has 3 professional divisions and further divisions below that. In contrast AZ doesn't even have an MLS team - but it does have NFL, NBA, MLS & NHL.
I do agree that pay to play is a significant barrier. The DA program made a lot of sense by attempting to remove that. That said, you can't ignore the fact that soccer is not that popular in the US compared to other pro and college sports. It is way down the list.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the long run. Football and baseball participation rates have been dropping for years.
What's holding soccer back in the US is that MLS is structured like the NFL. What I mean is that MLS is a league that controls the teams that play in it. Different teams are franchises. Instead of operating as an association of independently owned clubs, MLS is a single entity in which each team is owned by the league and individually operated by the league's investors. What this means is that MLS is more of a show than a competiton between independent entities.
In Europe and other parts of the world soccer clubs are completely independent. When they play each other the results are real. Also from a player perspective theres no such thing as a "salary cap". Imagine how much interest in soccer would change if kids saw top soccer players making 200 million+.
Finally a grey area in America which is legal in other parts of the world is Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP). Or a payment from a big club to a smaller club for developing a player. Imagine how different youth soccer clubs would be if they were paid 500k for each big time talent they developed.
In Europe and other parts of the world soccer clubs are completely independent. When they play each other the results are real. Also from a player perspective theres no such thing as a "salary cap". Imagine how much interest in soccer would change if kids saw top soccer players making 200 million+.
Finally a grey area in America which is legal in other parts of the world is Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP). Or a payment from a big club to a smaller club for developing a player. Imagine how different youth soccer clubs would be if they were paid 500k for each big time talent they developed.
Maybe we can grow into the kind of world dominant power that can consistently beat Trinidad and Tobago.US has been out of the group stage in 3/4 world cups this century
I'd be interested in hearing the name of these lawyers, because I've had parents ask me this same question and I couldn't find anyone for them who thought this was a viable case.
The mls also caps designated players (who can earn the bigger bucks) at 3 per team. The result is the salaries aren’t attractive to us home grown players who can earn more by going to college but it is attractive to players from el salvador or Trinidad for which it’s a lot of money. That time spent playing college (with a limited season and not always the best coaching) is wasted development time during the prime soccer years
which means the real pathway for development is sending the kids to Europe to play. But there are significant legal and financial obstacles to making that work and only those with significant resources can do it
there is another path which is playing in Mexico but again it’s risky, banks on ultimately moving to Europe, and college is a much safer option for those considering this.
The hartzell case established the rule in California that you can’t charge for high school sports. But the problem is the schools don’t have the funds so they try and avoid the rule by charging things like uniform fees or farming out fundraising to the boosters (and the boosters in turn just charge the membership because you can only do so many car washes a year…car washes which generally go to hardship or recruitment scholarships). Many of them get around the most egregious fees by providing income waivers for the poorer kids, but those income waivers have also become a way for the schools to provide scholarships to recruited athletes.
there are a couple of lawsuits by the aclu that are snaking their way through the courts. I can imagine it would be hard to find a private lawyer that would want to take this. First there’s the question of fees: it would be a lawsuit against the government (which are difficult) and there isn’t likely to be a recovery of attorneys fees against the government. I slipped and fell on some ice several years back on state land and broke my ankle…if I had slipped in front of the vons or even my neighborhood restaurant there would have been a line of lawyers wanting to take it…but I couldn’t even find a friendly acquaintance willing to take up the bother. Second, it’s politics as the trial bar is heavily aligned with the Democratic Party (which controls many of the local school boards) and no one wants to shake the system which might bring down the entire athletics system at local schools, particularly if the lawyer has any future interest in politics or the bench. Third, if it’s a smaller community the lawyer would be socially ostracized for trying to bring down the local football program. Fourth, because it’s the government, it’s just harder to sue them and takes a bunch of more hours at work for something which may not be that profitable. Fifth, there isn’t a large specialty as a result in suing the government and either the lawyer has to undergo substantial education or if they are government lawyers have much easier and lucrative cases to fry (such as disabled Ed lawsuits). So we’ll have to see the results of the aclu lawsuits, which iiuc got paused during the time the schools were shut down for Covid and some of their clients aged out (leading the govt to argue there’s no ongoing harm and no financial damages to be paid).
Totally Agree. US has very small selection pool for ANY sports due to "pay to play" scheme. The problem is just magnified in soccer due to its popularity in other countries.
I grew up fascinated with Olympic athletes and always wonder how Cuba can produce world record high jumps, Jamaica can produce world record sprints, how on earth Australia is a rival with US swimming (27mil vs 330mil with comparable resources and genetics)?
Being a parent now, the answer is that only 10-15% of households can afford to pay $5000+ for sports. I am talking serious training here, not YMCA level, meaning training 5+/week + tournaments + transportation. Let's not even mention ice skating or gymnastics, I doubt those parents in China spent $10k/year for these gold medalists. If you don't like China, let's compare with Norway with their athletic achievements.