ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Ignoring the fact that there are no trapped players in MLSN in a comparison to ECNL, is a bit disingenuous. Biobanding is something completely different than having hundreds if not thousands of waivers to process every year for the trapped players. That is why they are pushing to make a uniform date.

Biobanding is just allowing players to play down. SY in comparison to BY is the same thing.

It is not the same thing, as has been mentioned numerous times in this thread. Your oversimplification is cute.

Leagues are free to implement biobanding or playing down or whatever they want to call it however they want. If they choose to make biobanding complicated it can be complicated. If not it won't be.

Here's how you use biobanding to make BY SY equivalent...

Just say ECNL allows 18 bioband players per team with an age cutoff of Aug 1st the previous year.

Boom BY lbut without trapped players. (SY equivalency)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

Million dollar question.

All the ECNL antics seem ridiculous when you discover that they could have addressed trapped players in 2017 and they also could address it tomorrow if they wanted to.

I thought it was more the college recruitment argument, anyway? Playing with your grade, makes it easier on all for that, apparently.

Recruiters will find talent no matter where it's at. This is their job.

Parents like to think that recruiters will only find top players for a certain grade in school if they're all on the same field at the same time. This is not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD went through BY change and was (is this year too) trapped. Dumbest move in sports history. Why have 8th graders doing nothing while 1/2 their team play HS? Why we watching 1/2 the team graduate and play a year of NCAA while we play with 1/2 a team of new players? There will be old and young players at both BY or SY, but only one (BY) traps players. Insanity then and insanity now. Only BY maxis on this thread want their very like great team to remain and not blow it up like we all went through. I'm sorry it'll happen, but for the future of the kids in this county, please Lord go to SY!

If your club had a good program, there should be a trapped team and league which may actually have a better experience than teammates in the 9th grade, because HS always isn't all that, either (depends on the district -- not all have freshmen OR even JV squads, so it could be a year of bench-sitting if they can even make the team -- what then?).

So, some trapped players, in that scenario, still benefit by training/playing with the club along with a different coach -- all new opportunities to stand out and/or lead. In that sense, those trapped players should be better prepared when they DO enter the 9th grade, perhaps more so than the rest of their grade, to compete for varsity, again if their district has fewer options.

That said, there's been enough negative experiences by people to push for SY options (and sorry you currently have one). It won't end trapped players, though. They will still exist if BY becomes the only choice but fewer so the entire soccer world will care less than the current trapped player potential plight.

How will there be trapped players in SY? Truly trapped with an older class, with no option to play with their class, as opposed to misaligned with a younger class, where they could play with their class by playing up (which might necessitate playing with a less competitive club / league if they’re not good enough to play up with their current club / league)? I’m not saying it’s not suboptimal for those kids, but they’re not actually “trapped.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

According to the podcasts, ECNL's current trapped player exemption left nobody happy, it wasn't working for the reasons they outline. So the only true solution was to coordinate with other leagues to go back to SY to address the trapped player problem and stop kids from leaving soccer at such young ages.

Not clear at all if they would have been allowed to grant permanent waivers to so many trapped players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

Ignoring that youth leagues wanted to stay with school year 10 years ago and strong arming them into birth year to benefit a couple of dozen players for youth national teams at the expense of millions of ulittles, yeah, that's bullying.

Obviously you've picked your propaganda and plan to stick with it. That's fine but ask yourself why US Soccer would allow MLSN to do biobanding (ie playing down) but not anyone else.

The reality is US Soccer doesn't care if leagues implement biobanding.

ECNL in this situation is trying to throw their weight around to show they have power. This has nothing to do with kids being trapped or not being trapped.

The difference is in 2026 US Soccer will allow leagues to choose if they officially want to lable their league SY or BY or whatever for groupings. The label in itself is just a label because leagues can work around it with specific rules (like biobanding with BY, etc).

Um, because US Soccer tips the scales for MLS, like a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Ignoring the fact that there are no trapped players in MLSN in a comparison to ECNL, is a bit disingenuous. Biobanding is something completely different than having hundreds if not thousands of waivers to process every year for the trapped players. That is why they are pushing to make a uniform date.

Biobanding is just allowing players to play down. SY in comparison to BY is the same thing.

It is not the same thing, as has been mentioned numerous times in this thread. Your oversimplification is cute.

Leagues are free to implement biobanding or playing down or whatever they want to call it however they want. If they choose to make biobanding complicated it can be complicated. If not it won't be.

Here's how you use biobanding to make BY SY equivalent...

Just say ECNL allows 18 bioband players per team with an age cutoff of Aug 1st the previous year.

Boom BY lbut without trapped players. (SY equivalency)

If you’re going to do this, why not just go to SY?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Ignoring the fact that there are no trapped players in MLSN in a comparison to ECNL, is a bit disingenuous. Biobanding is something completely different than having hundreds if not thousands of waivers to process every year for the trapped players. That is why they are pushing to make a uniform date.

Biobanding is just allowing players to play down. SY in comparison to BY is the same thing.

It is not the same thing, as has been mentioned numerous times in this thread. Your oversimplification is cute.

Leagues are free to implement biobanding or playing down or whatever they want to call it however they want. If they choose to make biobanding complicated it can be complicated. If not it won't be.

Here's how you use biobanding to make BY SY equivalent...

Just say ECNL allows 18 bioband players per team with an age cutoff of Aug 1st the previous year.

Boom BY lbut without trapped players. (SY equivalency)

Can you illustrate where USSF wouldn't object to this? If you can't, then your idea is a big hypothetical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

According to the podcasts, ECNL's current trapped player exemption left nobody happy, it wasn't working for the reasons they outline. So the only true solution was to coordinate with other leagues to go back to SY to address the trapped player problem and stop kids from leaving soccer at such young ages.

Not clear at all if they would have been allowed to grant permanent waivers to so many trapped players.

The current ECNL rule for trapped players is stupid which is why everyone ignores it.

Allow 18 players to play down 1 year if they were born between Aug 1st and Dec 31st and you have BY but no trapped players.

ECNL could have made this change in 2017 and that can also make it tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

Million dollar question.

All the ECNL antics seem ridiculous when you discover that they could have addressed trapped players in 2017 and they also could address it tomorrow if they wanted to.

I thought it was more the college recruitment argument, anyway? Playing with your grade, makes it easier on all for that, apparently.

Recruiters will find talent no matter where it's at. This is their job.

Parents like to think that recruiters will only find top players for a certain grade in school if they're all on the same field at the same time. This is not true.

So are soccer college players birth months relatively evenly distributed? Other posters say no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

According to the podcasts, ECNL's current trapped player exemption left nobody happy, it wasn't working for the reasons they outline. So the only true solution was to coordinate with other leagues to go back to SY to address the trapped player problem and stop kids from leaving soccer at such young ages.

Not clear at all if they would have been allowed to grant permanent waivers to so many trapped players.

The current ECNL rule for trapped players is stupid which is why everyone ignores it.

Allow 18 players to play down 1 year if they were born between Aug 1st and Dec 31st and you have BY but no trapped players.

ECNL could have made this change in 2017 and that can also make it tomorrow.

They can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Ignoring the fact that there are no trapped players in MLSN in a comparison to ECNL, is a bit disingenuous. Biobanding is something completely different than having hundreds if not thousands of waivers to process every year for the trapped players. That is why they are pushing to make a uniform date.

Biobanding is just allowing players to play down. SY in comparison to BY is the same thing.

It is not the same thing, as has been mentioned numerous times in this thread. Your oversimplification is cute.

Leagues are free to implement biobanding or playing down or whatever they want to call it however they want. If they choose to make biobanding complicated it can be complicated. If not it won't be.

Here's how you use biobanding to make BY SY equivalent...

Just say ECNL allows 18 bioband players per team with an age cutoff of Aug 1st the previous year.

Boom BY lbut without trapped players. (SY equivalency)

Can you illustrate where USSF wouldn't object to this? If you can't, then your idea is a big hypothetical.

If US Soccer allows biobanding in MLSN they'll allow it in ECNL. US Soccer isn't going to boot anyone out.

This is essentially what US Soccer is officially allowing leagues to do in 2026. But there was nothing specifically saying that leagues couldn't implement biobanding in 2017.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

According to the podcasts, ECNL's current trapped player exemption left nobody happy, it wasn't working for the reasons they outline. So the only true solution was to coordinate with other leagues to go back to SY to address the trapped player problem and stop kids from leaving soccer at such young ages.

Not clear at all if they would have been allowed to grant permanent waivers to so many trapped players.

The current ECNL rule for trapped players is stupid which is why everyone ignores it.

Allow 18 players to play down 1 year if they were born between Aug 1st and Dec 31st and you have BY but no trapped players.

ECNL could have made this change in 2017 and that can also make it tomorrow.

They can't.

Nice statement with nothing other than your stubborn hubberous to back it up.

Yes ECNL could allow biobanding tomorrow just as they could have in 2017.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

Million dollar question.

All the ECNL antics seem ridiculous when you discover that they could have addressed trapped players in 2017 and they also could address it tomorrow if they wanted to.

I thought it was more the college recruitment argument, anyway? Playing with your grade, makes it easier on all for that, apparently.

Recruiters will find talent no matter where it's at. This is their job.

Parents like to think that recruiters will only find top players for a certain grade in school if they're all on the same field at the same time. This is not true.

So are soccer college players birth months relatively evenly distributed? Other posters say no.

It depends on that you're looking for.

Unicorns will be playing up and with birthdates all over the place.

Regular players burthdares will be grouped at the start of whatever cutoff date is defined.

[Anonymous]

BTW all the ECNL fan club patents. Now that your mind has been blow because you're starting to realize that ECNL could have addressed trapped players in 2017 if they wanted to. It's time to try and change the subject to RAE because it's totally a different thing under SY as it is under BY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone actually arguing for BY from a “best for the system” perspective? For a reason other than change management (lazy) or international equivalency (irrelevant to 99.9999% of people on this thread)? I get that the currently RAE advantaged group wants to keep their advantage, and the currently RAE disadvantaged group wants to seize the advantage. The neutral reason for SY is eliminating trapped players. What is the neutral reason for BY?

BY separates age groups from school grade. This keeps youth soccer from slipping into the GY (graduation year) debate because the cutoff isn't associated with your grade in school in any way.

BY is easy to administer. Not confusing in any way.

BY doesn't have to address different school district start dates

BY is what currently exists. Changing to SY will mean updating all kinds of different club documents and marketing.

Ok....brave! Haven't seen someone try to advocate for splitting up school grades. Probably not alot of takers here for that but I applaud the effort. Not everyone should let common sense get in their way.

Separates age groups from school grade to avoid everything slipping into chaos and anarchy?? I'd polish it up a bit and come back to try again.

You asked why someone would advocate for BY and I provided a list of reasons. No polish is required.

The problem with sites like this one is that it suffers from group think. Everyone here seems to be approaching the subject from a what's in it for me perspective.

If you think from a club owners perspective BY makes a lot of sense. It's easy to administer, it already exists, etc. One aspect that parents don't consider is that clubs DO NOT want GY leagues. This is because if BY became SY which became GY then suddenly private schools could participate in leagues like ECNL. Private schools can give scholorships and buy winning teams. This would kill the currently pay to play model.

Make a little more sense now.

Your forgetting that clubs want the more money, aka higher participation, that comes with SY. Not easier to administer, they would be the same. But the already exists reason for nervous clubs afraid of change did push it out a year. Based on what is being said about the survey, clubs picked SY not BY

SY might be good for town or lower level rec leagues. But, once you cross into the competitive world nobody cares about playing with their friends at school anymore. Also coaches hold competitive tryouts every year and could care less who atrends which school or grade.

SY was picked over BY, BY mandate removed

Currently it's a league by league decision.

We'll see where it ends up.

Last month, BY was removed as a mandate. You should bet all your money on all the leagues sticking with BY.

There was no "mandate" leagues like MLSN allowed players to play down. Any league could have chosen to do the same thing.

ECNL just wants to throw it's weiner around in an attempt to look powerful. If ECNL wanted to let players play down they could have at any time. (Just like MLSN does now)

Youth soccer, including ECNL as a coalition, is standing up to the bully that US Soccer is. US Soccer brings virtually nothing to the table for kids but wants their lunch money.

Again, ECNL could have implemented biobanding (just like MLSN) at any time and there wouldn't be any "trapped" players.

US Soccer isn't a bully. ECNL leadership thinks that they're more important than they are.

It seems like ECNL stood up for all of youth soccer for change but without inside knowledge, I don't know it. All I can say is that youth soccer including ECNL stood to US Soccer.

There was nothing for ECNL to stand up to. ECNL could have implemented biobanding at any time just like MLS Next did. This would have eliminated trapped players.

This could have happened the day after everyone switched to BY in 2017. It could also happen tomorrow if ECNL wanted to.

Why don’t they do that?

According to the podcasts, ECNL's current trapped player exemption left nobody happy, it wasn't working for the reasons they outline. So the only true solution was to coordinate with other leagues to go back to SY to address the trapped player problem and stop kids from leaving soccer at such young ages.

Not clear at all if they would have been allowed to grant permanent waivers to so many trapped players.

The current ECNL rule for trapped players is stupid which is why everyone ignores it.

Allow 18 players to play down 1 year if they were born between Aug 1st and Dec 31st and you have BY but no trapped players.

ECNL could have made this change in 2017 and that can also make it tomorrow.

MLS Next didn't start until 2020, not sure when their late developers started. MLS Next is the federations chosen one and ECNL is the red-headed step child, no way permanent blanket waivers covering 6-7 years for almost half of the kids would be allowed.

You are making ECNL out to be the true heroes and leaders of youth soccer for getting the calendar year mandate like rule eliminated for the Fall 2026 and not just coming up with a solution for themselves.

Maybe you are right.