Strikers ECNL rumors
- Thread starter Mom of 2
- Start date
Ironically, there are fair number of parents on the boys side at SD Surf that are complaining they are in ECNL, and not MLS Next.
vegasguy
GOLD
They are not head and shoulders the top half of ECNL. So their complaints may be ego driven. Just my opinion.
No way.
Seems to be the complaining is more common from they parents of the kids on the younger end of ECNL.
An MLS Club might be one of the few clubs Surf hasn't tried to franchise yet. Although there's still time and their revenue trajectory is heading in the right direction.
keeprunning
BRONZE
Youth Soccer is f$cking crazy.
SoccerFan4Life
PREMIER
FC Dallas is making tons of money on their academy graduates. More and more mls teams need to see the value of youth player development. The market for young American players is very hot right now and the Europeans will be looking at mls academies rather than an ECNL boys program.
Girls is different and ECNL is a great path for their development.
best and truest comment on this board ever.
It's very difficult for a new league to take roots in the current environment of constant changes. The dynamics of youth Soccer and especially MLS academies keep changing in post Covid times. I seriously doubt we have seen the last of these changes after everything that happened the last 15 months.
Those were the days alright, and I'm sad to say they are gone forever. And yet, I wonder if your young self back then could see into the future the way it is now (from a kid's perspective), what would they choose. Most of the discontent is centered at the parent's level, not the kids.
vegasguy
GOLD
Clubs like Surf or Albion would receive zero dollars from a Euro club if a player is picked up by a Euro Club. See DeAndre Yedlin. An even better example is Pulisic.
Actually, Crossfire won its case before FIFA that it deserved solidarity payment for Yedlin, but the problem was that FIFA agreed that Tottenham had already paid the solidarity payment to MLS and so Crossfire will have to sue MLS to get it. The question is what happens on the next case, where the youth clubs know to get in their claims alongside MLS in a timely fashion and the buying clubs are on notice that only paying MLS is not sufficient.
Pulisic's club, Penn Classics, announced that it would not be seeking training compensation or solidarity payment for Pulisic. Instead, Pulisic recently donated a brand new training pitch to the team.
Very cool. I knew I liked him.
Youth clubs are not getting a slice of the pie.
Even when a MLS club get some transfer fees they are sharing some of those with the single entity franchise owners.
FC Dallas spendt(s) millions on DA and others programs each year and the net effect is there not making 'tons' when the sell a few players to euro clubs. I would be surprised if they even made any $ over the last 6 years on what they spent on youth vs what they received in transfer or other funds for those players.
vegasguy
GOLD
First Dortmund was not going to ever pay Pulisic's you club anything. There is a case America that precludes MLS from paying solidarity payments to amateur clubs. MLS hangs their hat on this and because it is a closed league believe that FIFA do not have jurisdiction. If Danny Leyva at Sounders gets transferred to Getafe do not expect Getafe to pay Heat FC in Vegas or the Sounders to pay anything for that matter.
Dortmund is a different situation. That would have only been training compensation, which is a very small sum in comparison, and the signing occurred before the Yedlin case was decided. Pulisic's move to Chelsea was the big money move since it involved solidarity payment based on a second move for a transfer fee and that was where Classics was asked about whether it would apply for a share of his fee. The amount of solidarity payment is a fixed percentage. The payer doesn't pay more or less if there are fewer or more clubs dividing it up, so it wouldn't have bothered them. The reason Tottenham was contesting the Crossfire application is because it would have been an additional amount and they had already paid their full required fee to MLS.
If Levya left, it wouldn't be Sounders who would pay Heat (there is no system for domestic SP/TC in the US and many other countries anyway) it would be Getafe if Heat would have to put in a timely claim. The biggest problem wouldn't be a legal case. There was a case filed by some youth clubs seeking a declaratory judgment that would prevent the MLS players' union from contesting solidarity payments on antitrust grounds, which was ultimately dismissed on jurisdictional grounds to be refiled likely in NY rather than Houston, TX, but that wouldn't prevent this. The biggest question is whether US Soccer would support it, but because MLS has recently come out in favor and no longer opposes it, I suspect US Soccer wouldn't stand in the way if Heat put in a claim and was awarded the money. The biggest problem for Heat would be the player passport. Most of the claims for solidarity payment or training compensation worldwide that are rejected are because the player passport, which tracks a players' club playing history, is incomplete or inadequate. Leyva's playing career with the Sounders Academy is well documented and available on the still up USSDA website, but it would probably be difficult to establish he played for anyone else starting at age 12 (no TC or SP before then under FIFA rules).
Kante
PREMIER
Good on CP for giving some back. Wasn't aware of that.
However.
Impt to remember that when PA Classics announced they wouldn't seek comp for Pulisic, estimated by most to be btw $500k - $1m, it was a controversial decision.
Xfire was actively advocating/litigating on the Yedlin issue, with US Soccer and MLS on the other side of the issue, and PA Classics seeking comp for Pulisic would have been really problematic for US Soccer/MLS.
About three months after PA Classics announced publicly they wouldn't seek comp - with PA Classics DOC Steve Klein taking the public lead stating (almost verbatim) several US Soccer/ML talking points against solidarity comp as the PA Classics rationale - Klein was appointed by US Soccer to be the u15 YNT head coach for what was essentially the 2019 cycle.
For context, when Klein was appointed, PA Classics had one of the worst collective team win-loss records across all age groups in the whole USSDA (about 100-ish clubs).
Will leave it to others to infer or not infer causality.
Kante
PREMIER
One of the ramifications of the ridiculousness from US Soccer/MLS on training/solidarity payments is that clubs across the US have been deprived of millions in funding, and thousands of kids have had less opportunity over the years as a result.