I noticed not even a Pandemic could take down Pay to Play...

Glitterhater said:
Agreed. His comments actually caused quite a negative ripple effect. You had middle school girls staying up until 11 and 12 o'clock at night on a school night because they were too afraid to miss practice, but yet they still wanted to get all of their homework done. One of the many reasons we are no longer with that club!
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I told my kids they dont have to go to college ever since they were born. Pro is always an option if you work hard at your pro craft. Kobe did it. Mike Trout did it. Messi did it and so did all the other greats. However, I also told them all the facts if you have a degree and all that. My dd just wanted to play soccer when she was 12-14. Just soccer. Too early pushing college on 7th graders. ECNL is a great league for 9th graders and olders.
 
Emma said:
Yes, but he's rarely the one able to pay 3K for club soccer.
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I was once a co team manager for a group of 2003 boys. My son was in the team because he had some skill but we had the money. These Latino boys were in the team because Pats Partially funded most of them. The parents couldn’t afford more than $800 per season. A few of us parents ended paying more than our share to help out.

Some of these kids made it to the pats academy but the Travel distance and time Off work that it took for parents to drive was too much.
Some couldn’t make it to games outside of SoCal due to travel expenses. We would pay for a couple of hotel rooms and put 6 in a room. Lol.

This flight 1 team beat well funded discovery 1 teams in the area. Unfortunately this team didn’t have the money to pay for $1k college scout tournaments or other elite events. My son dropped out because he couldn’t hang with this talent. There are so many kids out there that just don’t have the resources.
 
Anon9 said:
If your child is a GOAT, they won’t need to be paying $3k a year. Any coach would take a GOAT and give them a scholarship. Find them a ride to practice, games, etc. There is truly no excuse. The only players being left out are the ones not good enough. This is all a myth. I challenge any of you to find me a true GOAT, right now, that is not playing because the parents can’t afford it. I know players that were GOATS at U8, were the fastest and biggest, and they never got the training and are no longer playing. Players drop off and become obsolete, doesn’t mean they were too poor to afford good training.
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How do you think these kids become goats and get offered scholarships? It comes thru training and hard work first. Which cost money or parental time away from work (also monetary). I've seen plenty of very fast, athletic, coordinated kids, stellar at 7 and 8 years old, get completely lost in a 9 v 9 and 11 v 11 game because they didn't have the same amount of training or parental commitment due to work or financial limits.

I've seen parents put kids in clubs on a scholarship and still can't get their kids to practice bc no one on the team lives nearby to drive to the top clubs and the kids end up dropping club soccer.

Hallie Mace is a GOAT and her parents were not able to put her in Eagles until her senior year in high school. Lucky for them, they were financially well off enough to put her in a local cheap club to develop. She doesn't quite have the foot skills some of the Goats have bc she wasn't able to develop it at a young age. Imagine if she could afford to develop those foot skills at an earlier age, how much better she would even be today.

I've seen plenty of parents get surprised when their 10 year old goat looks like a donkey at 17 when a multi sport, fully developed athlete like
 
SoccerFan4Life said:
I've heard from several ECNL coaches that the Great Park of Irvine is a great spot to hold practices because most of the kids with money are located in South OC. One thing is the fee and the other the travel cost. Not too many parents have the finances to take their kids to play in Utah, Las Vegas, AZ, every other weekend. Then you add trips to the East Coast in the summer.

Why not keep the best players at Flight 1 and have them play against each other every weekend locally. You can have an All Star team that gets to practice every other week and they get to travel in the summer for a couple of tournaments.


www.theguardian.com

Alex Morgan says pay-to-play is hurting soccer in the US. Is she right?

The USA striker thinks the model for young players in America is broken. But figures such as MLS commissioner Don Garber disagree
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

The above article has some really good information to make this point of pay to play.

1 A recent survey claimed young players from households earning less than $25,000 a year amounted to just 11% of boys and girls in registered clubs, compared to 35% in households bringing in over $100,000.
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Didn't Alex Morgan play for a time with WCFC?
 
SFR said:
Agree with best players should never have to pay.
The question is who should pay? The government, non-profit org, some corporate, taxing the neighborhood where the club is located, your neighbor? Who?
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Also, I have a talented volley ball player but can't afford the cost of club and travel, who should pay?
 
Emma said:
How do you think these kids become goats and get offered scholarships? It comes thru training and hard work first. Which cost money or parental time away from work (also monetary). I've seen plenty of very fast, athletic, coordinated kids, stellar at 7 and 8 years old, get completely lost in a 9 v 9 and 11 v 11 game because they didn't have the same amount of training or parental commitment due to work or financial limits.

I've seen parents put kids in clubs on a scholarship and still can't get their kids to practice bc no one on the team lives nearby to drive to the top clubs and the kids end up dropping club soccer.

Hallie Mace is a GOAT and her parents were not able to put her in Eagles until her senior year in high school. Lucky for them, they were financially well off enough to put her in a local cheap club to develop. She doesn't quite have the foot skills some of the Goats have bc she wasn't able to develop it at a young age. Imagine if she could afford to develop those foot skills at an earlier age, how much better she would even be today.

I've seen plenty of parents get surprised when their 10 year old goat looks like a donkey at 17 when a multi sport, fully developed athlete like
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I get it. But now you’re saying “what could have been if they had the training.” That’s true for many things, not just soccer. The point is none of these players deserve a free ride now, and that’s that.
 
Anon9 said:
Practice is 1.5 hours. I wonder what these girls are doing the rest of the afternoon/evening.
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Half hour there, half hour home, it now becomes 2.5 hours. If your kid is doing it right, they have five classes that have homework, some AP classes, some Honors and you have a lot of homework. Add in dinner and a shower and you have very little free time if any. That is what they are doing.
 
Copa9 said:
Half hour there, half hour home, it now becomes 2.5 hours. If your kid is doing it right, they have five classes that have homework, some AP classes, some Honors and you have a lot of homework. Add in dinner and a shower and you have very little free time if any. That is what they are doing.
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I wish I could tell you what I go through. But I wont. It’s a matter of priorities and if you REALLY want it. However, I respect your point of view and I truly do get it. Just saying, some people travel WAY MORE than you do, as well as having smart children taking Honors and/or AP courses.
 
Copa9 said:
Half hour there, half hour home, it now becomes 2.5 hours. If your kid is doing it right, they have five classes that have homework, some AP classes, some Honors and you have a lot of homework. Add in dinner and a shower and you have very little free time if any. That is what they are doing.
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Yes, all of this. Plus her school day didn't even end until 3:40. I just felt like he had already made up his mind, so that's fine.
 
Anon9 said:
I wish I could tell you what I go through. But I wont. It’s a matter of priorities and if you REALLY want it. However, I respect your point of view and I truly do get it. Just saying, some people travel WAY MORE than you do, as well as having smart children taking Honors and/or AP courses.
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Seriously, I'm not just BS'ing, I'm sorry that you have to go through alot to get your DD/DS to their sport. I'm sure they are grateful! All our kids better appreciate us, lol
 
Copa9 said:
Half hour there, half hour home, it now becomes 2.5 hours. If your kid is doing it right, they have five classes that have homework, some AP classes, some Honors and you have a lot of homework. Add in dinner and a shower and you have very little free time if any. That is what they are doing.
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All this just made me feel sick in my head. None of the greats had to also take BS AP classes and all this and that to be a great soccer player. Only for the girls do we heap all this crap on them. Let them live their life a little for goodness snakes. Ok, that's me just keeping it real with all of you.
 
Glitterhater said:
My DD knows that school will always come first. Unfortunately, she had a coach that flat out said "If you have to miss practice for homework, you shouldn't be playing soccer." Let alone the player he told this to barely ever missed! It was a situation of finals, projects, etc.
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If our coach said to put soccer before homework, he'd lose half his team.
 
Anon9 said:
I get it. But now you’re saying “what could have been if they had the training.” That’s true for many things, not just soccer. The point is none of these players deserve a free ride now, and that’s that.
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I don't think you were addressing whether someone deserves training for free. You were addressing whether finance kept any "potential" goats out of the game. I was pointing out that finance does keep great players out and prevents them from reaching their full potential.

This is what you said: "If your child is a GOAT, they won’t need to be paying $3k a year. Any coach would take a GOAT and give them a scholarship. Find them a ride to practice, games, etc. There is truly no excuse. The only players being left out are the ones not good enough. This is all a myth. I challenge any of you to find me a true GOAT, right now, that is not playing because the parents can’t afford it. I know players that were GOATS at U8, were the fastest and biggest, and they never got the training and are no longer playing. Players drop off and become obsolete, doesn’t mean they were too poor to afford good training."

As to the deserving...yes, currently, only the pay to play kids are deserving of becoming GOATS or reaching full potentials because we don't have a centralized system that will help kids develop without all the extra costs. A free and serious afterschool sports program starting in elementary school might close this gap and make high school soccer more exciting too. It would probably prevent diabetes and reduce the cost of health care for us too.
 
Anon9 said:
If your child is a GOAT, they won’t need to be paying $3k a year. Any coach would take a GOAT and give them a scholarship. Find them a ride to practice, games, etc. There is truly no excuse. The only players being left out are the ones not good enough. This is all a myth. I challenge any of you to find me a true GOAT, right now, that is not playing because the parents can’t afford it. I know players that were GOATS at U8, were the fastest and biggest, and they never got the training and are no longer playing. Players drop off and become obsolete, doesn’t mean they were too poor to afford good training.
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No such thing as a 7 year old that’s Greatest of all time. Throwing around a ridiculous superlative!
 
Anon9 said:
If your child is a GOAT, they won’t need to be paying $3k a year. Any coach would take a GOAT and give them a scholarship. Find them a ride to practice, games, etc. There is truly no excuse. The only players being left out are the ones not good enough. This is all a myth. I challenge any of you to find me a true GOAT, right now, that is not playing because the parents can’t afford it. I know players that were GOATS at U8, were the fastest and biggest, and they never got the training and are no longer playing. Players drop off and become obsolete, doesn’t mean they were too poor to afford good training.
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Soccerhelper said:
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yeah that is cool vintage video of The GOAT. But he wasn’t that at age 7. He became that with intense, singular focus over years.

There are 7 year olds all over the US in rec leagues that do that every time they step on the field. They are not GOATs is all I’m saying.
 
Not sure about this one, not all club teams have "Free Best Player funds"
I can say that our team is beyond stacked and Im positive that everyone pays, there may be some help for one family but thats their thing not mine to worry about.
 
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