The problem with pro/rel model in youth amateur sports...
1) Quality of play will suffer - in the quest to win as many games as possible, there would be a lot more kickball and less possession, less creativity, less risk-taking, more coaches yelling at the kids what to do.
2) Individual player development will suffer - due to #1 and the type of player that does better at kickball, guess what type of players will get most/all of the playing time? Also, rosters of 18-20 may only play the same 11-13 kids. So much for the late bloomers.
3) Feeds the problem of Super Teams - most players will flock to the best teams who have the deepest bench with the least chance of being relegated. Didn't we recently read about professional soccer players discussing that one of the most important things for them was how they had to sometimes carry their team or consistently be the one who put the team on his/her back to win a game because they were NOT on a SuperTeam? That builds and teaches grit etc. in the youth game, when they need to learn it.
4) Don't forget who is the league's customer - ECNL's customers are the clubs, not the parents, not the players. Who do they want to keep happy? Their customers. This isn't professional soccer. A new ECNL club can't go out and buy players to join their cause and make for better TV ratings like an Aston Villa, Wigan or Leeds. If doing it the right way, they need time/years to bear fruit of their coaching, development, team cohesion, etc. -- these are 13-17yr old kids, not adults. Clubs want stability. And gosh, after all this upheaval, don't we as families want some stability too? We should want to encourage clubs to develop players over time, not hang out in parking lots and recruit gullible parents. If a top player wants to stay on a mediocre team because his/her friends from school are on that team and because he/she is carrying the load and improving as discussed in #3, the league should encourage that. Not penalize by forcing the kid to go play on SuperTeam and become a cookie-cutter player who plays half as much and develops 50% less.
It's ok to have some incentives and rewards for winning more games -- Cups, better showcase placement, etc. -- but too often we want our kids' athletic experiences to be like what we see on TV--The pros...how they train, how they play, how they're coached (and how many of the coaches see themselves), how they're dressed on the field, how they travel, what they do off the field. But guess what, they're not pros, not adults, and treating them as such will actually hurt them in the long run--burnout, injury, desire, etc.
Pro/rel is a great thing in professional soccer - and I think it should definitely be a part of MLS. But making it a part of a youth league, where the PRIMARY purpose should still be to develop our players as much as possible, would be completely contrary to that goal. If you want to add a couple of clubs each year to your league--ECNL or MLS/hybrid or ABCD--fine, no problem. That, you can do like the pro leagues do--geographically where does it fill a void, which clubs have shown stability and a mission that is consistent with the league, which clubs will add value, etc. Just don't do it at the expense of eliminating other existing customer clubs. Otherwise, you repeat the frustration and disruption that the USSF has currently created and continue the cycle for even more families and players.
Beautiful day out there--find some time to horseplay with your kids today in the street if you haven't already.
I said no but where can we score some. One guy said he knew a place in SA. I drove us down to Chevy Chase and boy what that interesting. Scored a dime bag, but that was after the first guy took our $50 and never came back with our weed. I got the worst headache ever and asked these boys from Fullerton how they smoke this sh*t? I will say I never went back and I had a little biz going for a few months until I decided to quit altogether.
