MLS Academy League Announcement Coming Soon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Correct. The rules say if it is pay to play or you are not entitled to any future payments - it needs to be free to the players. DCU had to move to this model if it wanted to reap the benefits from homegrown contracts. Hence, make the local pay to play clubs sort the players. I know DCUM has a lot of questionable comments ... isn’t it nice the DCU can shift the cost of player sorting to local clubs (parents) and not have to do the work to find talent. Parents will still foot the bill for MLS, only now DCU can sweep in and grab future potential. Enjoy the MLS next platform, the yield will be less than 1%. Just don’t believe you’re kid is talented because you play in this league. Soccer is expensive and everyone wants the parents to pay for that lottery chance.

It's an improvement!

[Anonymous]

Fully funded now. https://www.dcunited.com/post/2020/09/14/dc-united-announce-update-academy-programming

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: ... isn’t it nice the DCU can shift the cost of player sorting to local clubs (parents) and not have to do the work to find talent. Parents will still foot the bill for MLS, only now DCU can sweep in and grab future potential. Enjoy the MLS next platform, the yield will be less than 1%. Just don’t believe you’re kid is talented because you play in this league. Soccer is expensive and everyone wants the parents to pay for that lottery chance.

I'm not sure I understand the vitriol in comments like this. DCU (finally) moved to be fully funded (in a pandemic, no less) and the comment is about how they are "shift[ing] the cost of player sorting to local clubs (parents)"? Uh, no, they just shifted it significantly to themselves.

And "the yield will be less than 1%"? Does this mean the percentage of players in the MLS Next league that will become pros? Of course, it's probably even less than that, but so what? Most players on Bethesda/Armour/etc aren't there because they think they are going pro--they just want to train with and play against the best competition they can find.

Finally, "don’t believe you’re [sic] kid is talented because you play in this league". If they play in this league over many years and are still there by U17/19, they are definitely talented, and will probably be recruited athletes for college, many/most at D1. Some parents on here seem so antagonistic toward players/families/teams/leagues that are ambitious--as if the only possible reason is to be a pro (which will never happen!). As an employer, I will say that seeing a potential employee played a team sport at an elite level over a long period of time is a big attraction, especially for younger people, early in their career. This is because dedicating yourself to being really good at something over the course of years--that requires both individual skill and teamwork--is a major predictor of success in all kinds of other pursuits. So let's celebrate it, rather than making it seem pointless.