SoCal Elite - exit stage left

Do the current player contracts become void in a situation like this? And what about refunds for the prepaid year?
 
Do the current player contracts become void in a situation like this? And what about refunds for the prepaid year?
 
SoccerDad343 said:
This email is being sent to notify the SOCAL membership, including DOC's, coaches, managers and Club Officials, that So Cal Elite FC is being removed as a member of the SOCAL Soccer League starting the Spring 2023 and the 2023/2024 Fall Season.

This email is not being sent to parents but can be forwarded to parents from the SOCAL member clubs should you choose to do so.



As many of you know, So Cal Elite has been posting tryouts for age groups that are outside of the dates, communicated and published, of our Tryout Policy and have continually failed to comply with the Tryout Policy when instructed to do so.

Their teams will be allowed to remain in State Cup for 2023.

As the club will no longer be a member of the SOCAL Soccer League, we no longer have jurisdiction over when they hold their tryouts, but their players are now considered non-SOCAL players and can be invited to your training session as non-SOCAL players.

Please note: players will not be allowed to transfer for Youngers State Cup as we will honor the participation of the So Cal Elite team in the Youngers State Cup event.

So Cal Elite will be exploring their options for a new league to participate in but their players are no longer protected by our Transfer Policy nor our Tryout Policy (with the exception of youngers transfers for State Cup since the roster freeze deadline was January 18, 2023.)

It is not an easy decision to make to remove a club from the league and the decision is not taken lightly but, the Technical Committee, the Tryout Committee and the Board of Directors all voted to remove the club from the league based on the their violation of probation and the Tryout Policy. The rules have to be enforced for all, not just some and this decision, while difficult, was made to protect the rules and policies of the members of the league and those that do choose to follow those rules and policies.

Should you have any questions, please let me know.

Thank you

Michelle Chesters

SOCAL Executive Director
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...violaton of probation..." What was that about?
 
RedDevil24 said:
My guess was either the league caught them and/or someone reported the tryout violation, and they were given a warning/probationary period to comply, and then caught again.
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My guess is the "probation" period is simply a basic "see how you work out for the first year" - not that they did something wrong. Like how a new employee starts without benefits for the first three months to see how it works out, and if it doesn't they're gone.
 
Socal-Soccer-Dad said:
Would it be in violation of their policy if it isn't an official tryout but a kid showed up to the team to "try out individually" with the team?
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Short answer is yes, that would be a violation.

There was a very explicit email sent out back in October about what is and is not allowed under the tryout window policy. There are some pretty big loopholes in the policy, so if someone got popped for violating they were either oblivious or didn't GAF. Given the punishment here (and the language in the announcement), seems like the latter.
 
nomo said:
Do the current player contracts become void in a situation like this? And what about refunds for the prepaid year?
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Depends on what the contract says. It's outside the jurisdiction of Socal League now so the only thing SoCal league can say is to the other clubs you are free to pick up their players now (which from the email it seems they did). Most club contracts aren't stupid enough to promise your kid they'll play in a certain league or even a certain team (reserving the right to move you to a lower team at any time prior to the freeze date). The question then becomes if they can field a team: a) will they have a coast slot (there’s not much left outside of Ventura and inland empire…what will coast do next year) & b) will the team disintegrate and how big is the migration out of the club (part of that depends what happens with mls next and ea1). Hopefully not too many people signed on this early (maybe mostly Younger’s) though the clubs are putting a lot of pressure on resigns early.

TopesWin said:
My guess is the "probation" period is simply a basic "see how you work out for the first year" - not that they did something wrong. Like how a new employee starts without benefits for the first three months to see how it works out, and if it doesn't they're gone.
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It’s at least their third year. B2008 last year won national cup.
VanMan said:
Short answer is yes, that would be a violation.

There was a very explicit email sent out back in October about what is and is not allowed under the tryout window policy. There are some pretty big loopholes in the policy, so if someone got popped for violating they were either oblivious or didn't GAF. Given the punishment here (and the language in the announcement), seems like the latter.
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It could be something else like the no camps rule or using their ea/dl tryouts (many of those teams are already at max roster) to recruit SoCal. Don’t have any specific knowledge but it doesn’t have to be overt poaching or tryouts, they have an aggressive sm presence, and always seem to be in recruiting mode including doing a recent mls pro/Mexican league pro recruiting camp
 
Nfarr67291 said:
That's technically legal because the player asked.
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There's no carve out in the policy "if the player asks."

Grace T. said:
It could be something else like the no camps rule or using their ea/dl tryouts (many of those teams are already at max roster) to recruit SoCal. Don’t have any specific knowledge but it doesn’t have to be overt poaching or tryouts, they have an aggressive sm presence, and always seem to be in recruiting mode including doing a recent mls pro/Mexican league pro recruiting camp
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All of those activiities are covered on the tryout window policy, including the loopholes.

Seems like they poked the bear one too many times.
 
It does seem like quite a statement that the league and club couldn't work out their issues over time, even for the most serious tryout violations. SoCal Elite currently shows as the 14th ranked Boys club in CA, and 45th Girls club in CA (21st club overall); 70+ teams with rankings within the last year or so. Top B2006B team is 9th in state, Top B2008 14th, Top B2011 11th, Top B2014 7th. Girls side isn't quite as strong, highest rated team is G2014 at 21st in state. If the club doesn't find a one-stop-shop to absorb all teams as is, it sure does seem like there must be quite a few talented players looking for spots at other competitive teams.
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
It does seem like quite a statement that the league and club couldn't work out their issues over time, even for the most serious tryout violations. SoCal Elite currently shows as the 14th ranked Boys club in CA, and 45th Girls club in CA (21st club overall); 70+ teams with rankings within the last year or so. Top B2006B team is 9th in state, Top B2008 14th, Top B2011 11th, Top B2014 7th. Girls side isn't quite as strong, highest rated team is G2014 at 21st in state. If the club doesn't find a one-stop-shop to absorb all teams as is, it sure does seem like there must be quite a few talented players looking for spots at other competitive teams.
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Those top boy teams are playing ea2 and it looked for certain that the club next year was going to get promoted to ea 1 and is even advertising its Id camps right now with the full ea logo (mission Viejo and oaks fc for example is advertising ea2 logo). They’ve also put a couple of those teams in front of the mls (at the mls/Mexican pro Id camp and some teams also got invitations to mls next fest) trying to sell themselves to the mls next.

If they are allowed to take their promotion to the ea, those teams should be fine for at least a while (and might if they can retain kids also have 2nd teams in ea2) but if coast is their feeders they might struggle to build the younger teams and new teams to be competitive (oaks fc has that issue) and to keep their affiliates. If the ea doesn’t like what happened and pulls the plug on the club, forget mls next & then the club is in danger of disintegrating. Coast is so hallowed out in la co and San Bernardino co right now that the Younger’s teams might find themselves playing their affiliates often and/or having to travel inland empire.
 
TeamDadJokes said:
Just like SoCal won’t kick out big name clubs, I doubt they’d tell SoCal Elite, we don’t want your 58 teams here, go to CSL… (https://system.gotsport.com/org_event/events/14215/clubs/13250). Especially when they’re making a push for EA1 on the boys side and GA on the girls side with some very successful teams in DPL and NPL on the girl side.

Whatever the gripe is, you don’t turn away that amount of money as a business. As the expression goes, money talks.. there are plenty of other clubs with worth business practices… SoCal elite has made a great push on the girls side getting Cle, O’Brien and Gio.. imo they’re the next big thing that’s up and coming in the IE..
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Looks like SOCAL is enforcing the standards.
 
Code said:
Looks like SOCAL is enforcing the standards.
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Ya, I’m surprised they did it. Kudos for them to sticking to their guns. Just confused because I’ve seen other SoCal teams post tryouts for girls age groups 2009-2017 as recent as this week and to what the email had said, the tryout window for these age groups hasn’t arrived yet. What is SoCal planning on doing to those teams too? One of them is a juggernaut club too.
 
TopesWin said:
Maybe this is how CSL makes a comeback??? SoCal Elite teams seem to be pretty strong and CSL is practically devoid of strong teams
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I don't know that would be a great strategy for CSL. How would CSL advertise the practice of picking up clubs that have been kicked out of other leagues due to their questionable integrity and inability to adhere to agreed upon rules and standards? "Come play in a league with the clubs who are willing to bend the rules and not uphold their word. It will be the Best!"
 
TeamDadJokes said:
Ya, I’m surprised they did it. Kudos for them to sticking to their guns. Just confused because I’ve seen other SoCal teams post tryouts for girls age groups 2009-2017 as recent as this week and to what the email had said, the tryout window for these age groups hasn’t arrived yet. What is SoCal planning on doing to those teams too? One of them is a juggernaut club too.
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The tryout policy allows you to advertise for the tryouts before the tryout window arrives, so long as the dates your are advertising are after the tryout window start date (for each grouping). Generally seems to be coinciding with end of round robin play for State Cup from what I can tell
 
RedDevil24 said:
The tryout policy allows you to advertise for the tryouts before the tryout window arrives, so long as the dates your are advertising are after the tryout window start date (for each grouping). Generally seems to be coinciding with end of round robin play for State Cup from what I can tell
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Cal Soth and Presidio tried to institute similar restrictions years ago but the more powerful club(s) ignored the rules so they just gave up.
 
TeamDadJokes said:
Ya, I’m surprised they did it. Kudos for them to sticking to their guns. Just confused because I’ve seen other SoCal teams post tryouts for girls age groups 2009-2017 as recent as this week and to what the email had said, the tryout window for these age groups hasn’t arrived yet. What is SoCal planning on doing to those teams too? One of them is a juggernaut club too.
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You can advertise your upcoming tryout dates. You can't advertise to have a tryout session that occurs prior to the agreed upon date. The problem is the date of the advertised tryout, not the advertisement.
 
What a bad deal for the Players and probably most of the Coaches. Piss poor Director decisions are ruining so many soccer families. Parents need to start finding clubs that are ran by an elected Board of Directors with openly published By-Laws. Individual greed is destroying clubs. I'm not targeting SoCal Elite, this perspective applies to many clubs.
 
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