This was not handled well by SYC and the MLS Next rules leave room for interpretation. For starters, back in September, statements by SYC about HS soccer led players and families to believe there would be flexibility and the rule would not be strictly enforced. This idea was reinforced in the fall when players attending private schools and/or living in Maryland were allowed to play HS. The vague messaging combined with private school/Maryland players getting the opportunity to participate in fall HS soccer created confusion and was unfair to the Virginia public high school players.
Adding to the confusion created by SYC are the poorly written MLS Next Rules that leave room for interpretation. For starters, MLS Next defines players as either “Full-Time” or “Future.” Specific to Full-Time, the rules state, “Full-time Players registered with a Club who do not meet waiver eligibility (meaning they are on scholarship at a private school to play soccer) and choose to play with their high school team will not be allowed to re-enter the Program during the same MLS NEXT Season after participating in the high school season with their current or a different Club.” Emphasis in this statement is on Full-Time.
Conversely, Future Players are defined as, “…a Player who is Rostered with a Club or its Affiliate who is not ready to contribute at the MLS NEXT level full time. A Future Player is not playing consistently and/or enough minutes in MLS NEXT Games to fully develop; therefore, the Player is eligible to play games outside of MLS NEXT. A Future Player is required to train a minimum of 1x every week with the Club, in addition to his non-MLS NEXT team, and overall should consistently train 3-4 times a week (depending on his age group).“
Because the no-high school rule is specifically attributed to Full-time players in the rules, this leaves the door open for Future players associated with the MLS Next team to play HS. Additionally, the MLS Next rules state that a team must have a minimum of 14 Full-time players on their roster and players’ status can change under one of two conditions to include 1) a Future Player can play in a maximum of 12 MLS NEXT Games in an MLS NEXT Season. After 12, they will be converted to Full-Time. 2) Clubs will have one period during the MLS NEXT Season (September 1, 2020 through April 2, 2021) at which time Players may be added as full-time (either adding a new full-time Player, a Player transfer from one Club to another, or moving a Future Player to full-time status).
I’m guessing SYC wouldn’t have had 14 Full-time players if they tried to switch some to Future status so they could play spring HS soccer. As a result, the private school kids got the best of both worlds and the public-school kids got screwed over because the rule wasn’t applied from the onset of the season back in August.