No Fee Club Team
- Thread starter Dominic
- Start date
I don't think that model can work anymore because the top leagues have become exclusive. Back in the day, a club could have a few fully-funded teams and play in Coast and work their way up to premier based entirely on winning, but now, in order to play at the top levels: MLS Next, ECNL, EA, etc., you need to have multiple teams at every age group and that's just too expensive to fund. Also field space, league costs and tournament fees are all getting more expensive (not sure about coaching fees). They'd have to be very, very rich.
I remember hearing a story about the story of Laufa's founding. Not a parent, but wasn't it something similar to that? Obviously that story didn't wind up too great because of the various factors you mentioned.
p.s. the parent thing still happens in high school, more in gridiron football than soccer. If you are the parent of a second-level QB looking to be recruited, you better have the resources to bring along (with tuition to private schools) receivers and RBs.
LAUFA was Rocky Delgadillo (former LA City attorney) and he raised money from donors to keep it afloat. It was never free, but was pretty affordable and many of the kids had scholarships. I'd say it turned out ok in the end when he sold to Albion.
For him maybe???? The existing mls next teams no problem. But for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th teams and the girls program not so much. Know some of the coaches and it wasn’t great for them at least in the short term for some of them. It’s a shell of what it once was but hopefully Albion can rebuild it as it was a great program that scholarshipped quite a few kids. It serves an area which the ecnl program drastically underserves. The big question is if it can continue to build out the letter program without a robust feeder system with the Younger’s (the same prob as SoCal elite). But the donor problem illustrates how hard it can be to keep a program like this running and why we don’t see white knights building championships anymore. I agree that day is done: David oh (and that program isn't free either) was probably one of the last to do it and we’ve seen the drama involved on that end and what it took to go as far as they’ve come. We’re now in the build it and they will come model as illustrated by Red Bulls and lasc on the boys side
You don't have to be very old to remember the case of Madison HS in San Diego whose quarterback was ruled ineligible by the CIF SD Section in 2011 even after the whole family moved from Phoenix because the father still had his primary business in Phoenix, changing 10 victories to losses by forfeit. The kid, Chase Knox, was the second-string QB at Bishop Brophy in Phoenix, but led Madison to a CIF title. Lawyers got involved, and eventually, the kid was ruled eligible and the forfeited victories were restored.
The big shift in high school football in the last 10 years has been the dominance of private and religions schools, at least in SoCal. Unlike public schools, they can “recruit” and offer scholarships.
maestroFRSM
SILVER
FC23
VBFC
Not sure who funds but attracts lots of top boys (around 13 14 U) looking for something outside traditional club programs
The big kid who lived around the corner from us in 2000-2010 "moved" to Orange County (his parents rented a condo for him) so he could play multiple sports at Junipero Serra High, which they saw as a step up from playing at San Diego's Cathedral Catholic.
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