Reply to My Gripe with Arlington Soccer Association (ASA)

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[quote=Anonymous]
My personal thoughts.  I don't know anything about the specific clubs or governmental entities involved

In terms of field usage/cost -- That is up to whoever owns the fields.  They can impose any reasonable requirements they want on usage.  If they wanted to impose a requirement that users be from a particular location they could do so.  They could also give preference in scheduling based on requirements that users are from a given area.  Two issues -- first, in my limited experience governmental field owners/managers like the revenue generated from the rentals more than they like "local" resident usage figures although I suspect that most of the time they fail to take into account the capital cost paid by particular residents.  Second, determining who exactly is using a field requires monitoring and is not simple.  For example, if soccer club X has 25 teams and the make up of those teams is 80 percent from the proscribed area would it matter if the make up of the 4 older teams is only 10 percent from the proscribed area?

In terms of how clubs go about making up teams - it obviously differs from club to club.  A typical community club will try and have several younger age teams -- say u9 to u11 or u12.  Some will take anyone who shows up and can pay.  Others will expect a certain minimum skill/athletic ability.  With soccer what happens is that at either u12 or u13 (depending on the league) the number of players on the field will move up to 11 and the team size then will need to grow to somewhere in the range of 16-18.  At the younger ages a team will have fewer players on the field and go with smaller team rosters so kids can get reasonable amounts of playing time.  For example if the kids are playing 6v6 the team might have only 10 kids.  If they are playing 8v8 that number might grow to 14.  The problem comes if a club has say 2 u12 teams with 13 kids on each playing 8v8 games.  When the kids move to u13 and start playing 11 v 11 they no longer have enough players to field 2 teams even assuming every player wants to keep playing.  So, a club's choice is to (a) try and recruit additional players who are at that same skill level (or better), or (b) create the team(s) they can and cut kids -- never a fun thing to do.

With older age teams the situation is a bit different.  Soccer like lots of youth sports is very stratified  Players migrate to find a playing situation that works for their individual situation (cost, time, level of play, opportunities within a team (i.e. position availability), coach, club, friends, etc. . .  For community clubs it can be a difficult proposition to field teams at older ages.  If you have say 18 kids on a u13 roster and 5 are going to leave to play on "better" teams or do something else,  unless you can find replacement players who are at least reasonably close in skill level to the remaining players that team is going to fold.  At around u12 or u13 in particular you will see kids who are thinking about playing professionally or in college look at playing for the highest level teams/clubs.

Once kids hit high school ages it can be even more difficult for community clubs.  Kids may quit playing club if they do not make their high school teams, or if they do make their teams and feel they do not need to keep playing to keep making the high school team.  They may just decide they have other interests that have higher priority.  So from about u15 and up you have very few kids who are playing just to have fun and clubs are always looking to add players who can play at their level.  Kids will move from club to club to find playing situations that work for them (and their families - taking into account cost/time constraints).  I would suggest that as a result of these and other factors imposing residency requirements for community clubs at those older ages may well mean that older age teams would fold.

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