From an athletic article an hour ago:
While MLS fans will be focused on the structure of the professional academies, the impact of the DA’s demise will be felt most acutely among the non-professional academies that made up the majority of the DA on both the girls’ and boys’ side.
In the 24 hours since U.S. Soccer’s decision to shutter the DA became more widely known, clubs have started to examine what their future will look like and where they can compete. ECNL president Christian Lavers said he has received hundreds of emails, texts and phone calls from clubs trying to determine next steps. The organization, which was widely seen as offering top competitive girls’ youth league in the country, has already
added 14 former boys’ DA clubs to its membership of more than 100 clubs nationwide. The girls’ league already added several top clubs in recent months and announced the
addition of two more clubs on Wednesday. Lavers said he anticipates substantially increasing the size of the league to accommodate more additions.
“This is an opportunity to unite some of the fractured past of soccer, with the ability to bring teams under one umbrella or one competitive framework that was not possible in the past,” Lavers said. “Certainly it’s not going to happen overnight, and probably not going to fully happen in one cycle, because we’re talking about a large number of clubs that are looking for now a different competitive platform. We are looking at how many clubs can we add and still continue to provide great service to members, still provide a coherent competitive schedule in terms of amount of games and travel, and work to add as many clubs as we can without destabilizing our program.”
Lavers said he has been in touch with leadership at U.S. Soccer about the potential structure of the league as well as about increasing the opportunity for coaching education and player development in conjunction with the federation. He called those talks “really positive.” Lavers said the ECNL’s goal is to create a more collaborative approach with directors of coaching and grassroots leaders at clubs across the country to create “an elite player pathway under one umbrella, all playing each other and not weaponizing league spots or tiering as a recruiting tool.”
Another focus for ECNL is on lowering the cost of playing. One way to directly impact those costs is to decrease travel, Lavers said, and he said he hopes the infusion of clubs into the ECNL will enhance local rivalries and decrease the amount of travel while maintaining high-level games for all teams. Lavers said the former DA clubs who are joining ECNL have agreed to play the existing ECNL clubs, a positive first step in breaking down “the barriers of who will play who.” He said he was not sure yet if the USSF had plans to continue its scholarship program that was used to help fund players across the Development Academy.
Lavers said there is a difference between the pro academies and the non-pro academies, but that he hopes to increase opportunity for players across the country and create a broader connection between the pro teams and the youth prospects at clubs around the country. He said the ECNL would not restrict its clubs from scheduling games against pro academies, as long as they give priority to ECNL scheduling.
“MLS teams are going to be scheduling games against clubs in our leagues,” Lavers said. “It may be different from one MLS club to another. We are very open to facilitating that to the degree that we can. I had some quick conversations with one MLS club already saying whether you want this to be a formal or informal arrangement, top teams (from the ECNL) or representative teams of top players from multiple teams (in the ECNL). We’d facilitate that. You want the best players to be seen by pro clubs, so if there is the potential for a pro pathway that player is not lost in the shuffle.”
Lavers said the Development Academy helped to fundamentally alter some key aspects of youth development in this country. But he added that those changes need to be buttressed by other improvements that enhance competition throughout the country, not just within certain leagues or certain tiers.
“When the DA was created in 2007, there were systemic issues of too many games and not enough meaningful games and not enough training sessions,” he said. “There was a philosophical change and it took time to grow, but that has been a positive impact of what that (DA) program did. But as it grew and as things changed, the clubs began to be distanced from each other and you started to have situations where clubs were not able to and would not play each other, even if they were in the same city or close by. That’s not a great thing for competition. It’s not a great thing to have kids drive past each other just because the structures don’t allow them to play. The challenge now is to create a collaborative program.”