Just received this email:
We are excited to announce that Surf Cup 2020 - Arizona will go on as planned! All aspects of the event, including the filming and free access for college coaches of all recruiting age games, will continue and the dates and general location won't change.
Although we respect the current COVID situation in our country, we are confident in the safety of outdoor youth sports and our COVID protocols and processes. More importantly, our athletes, families and college coaches have reached out to us in droves imploring us to move forward with the event. The foundation of our rationale is rooted in three core ideas:
• All qualitative and quantitative data support the idea that COVID is not being transmitted on the field of play during outdoor youth sports activities. We have all been "living in a lab" the past 9 months and we have all seen firsthand that COVID cases are not being passed among kids during practices, scrimmages or games. We know that youth sports activities are happening in 45 states across the country with no major COVID breakouts amongst youth athletes. We know that large scale tournaments in soccer, lacrosse, football and baseball are occurring every weekend across the US with no significant COVID cases. We know that 3 major college conferences successfully completed full seasons, playing hundreds of games, with very little COVID interruption. We've also seen the data from the Surf White Paper Study, the University of Wisconsin study and the Dutch Football study that shows that 98% of soccer games don't have enough prolonged contact to transmit COVID.
• Players in CA, NV, WA, OR and NM are not allowed to participate in youth sports. Meanwhile, in the other 45 states across the US those players haven't been asked to stop enjoying the game and competing in the sport they love. Athletes across the country are not being asked to miss their high school sports seasons - only our athletes are. College bound players across the country are playing in showcase events and being offered scholarships while only our players are missing out on that opportunity. The arbitrary nature of this decision making is having a dis-proportionate impact on our players and we feel a responsibility to give them the chance they deserve.
• We are confident in our ability to host a safe environment for youth soccer. However, our event allows each club, each team, each family and each athlete to make their own decisions about playing. We will respect every decision and will support those that play and those that choose not to.
To that point, we are offering accepted teams one final opportunity to withdraw from the event and receive a full refund (minus the credit card processing fee).
When your team originally applied for Surf Cup AZ the drop date to receive a refund was November 15th. However, due to the state-by-state changes and the venue changes for our event, we are extending that refund deadline to Wednesday, December 9th at 9pm PST. After this date, refunds will only be issued if AZ cancels the event or due to mandatory out of state travel restrictions from your state. Refunds will not be issued for recommended stay home policies after the 12/9 deadline. Refunds will be minus the credit card processing fee and will be issued via check.
Should you decide to withdraw from the event – please reply to this email with the following information -
Club/team name/gender/birth year
The name of the person whom the refund check should be made payable to
The address that the refund check should be mailed to as we are unable to process refunds back to the credit card used for payment.
Please reply to this email, ONLY if you wish to withdraw from the event, NO LATER THAN Wednesday, December 9th at 9pm PST as we do need to start working on the schedule and we need to know exactly what the numbers are that we are working with for scheduling.
If you do not reply you will be considered “accepted” for the event and will be scheduled for participation in the event. There is no need to reply to the email if you wish to remain in the event.
We will be providing schedules and field information as we get closer to the event dates. Teams will not need to change dates or hotels. Our dates will remain the same and all venues will be in the general area as originally planned. We will also be communicating our Safety Policies and Procedures prior to the event and we will ask all athletes, coaches and parents to be accountable for keeping our kids safe. If we all respect the protocols, then our children can enjoy the game they love and stay healthy.
See you in Arizona!
