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its all the same really.
It has become a business. good friend of ours, daughter plays travel soccer w/ Mandeville Soccer Club - $2000 registration fee....$600 for uniforms etc. in July 2018 they played in 4 weekend tourneys Fri-Mon ( one lasted Fri- Thur as they kept winning lol ) - Greg told me that month he spent close to $8000 in travel expense. Between hotel rooms, gas, dining out for breakfast and dinner and misc stuff in between.
Now keep in mind, when they go out of town for tourneys, the parents have to pay for coaches room/food expenses as well.
Now i know of the young man who runs MSC- Shane Jeanfreau- he was standout at Jesuit and was 2 years behind me here locally. So he isnt doing this JUST for the $$$, but make no mistake, its a $$$$ maker.
The main issue i have is that at ages 8-11, its about fun along with teaching fundamentals. But when you have travel teams starting at U10, it gets really competitive. Couple that with having parents think their little one is the next Pulisic or Alex Morgan, and you have a reciepe for "no expense spared".
All of that, I think, it is extremely detrimental to the evolution of the game. Surely there are for-profit 3rd party academies in other countries, but an overwhelming majority of soccer stars come from poor families who don't have the $1000's to put their kids through those 3rd party academies. In most countries, the academies you want to get in, are the ones run by the pro-teams. They still cost some money, but not close to the money a U.S. parent pays, and if your kid is good, the team gives them free rides. Guys like Messi, C. Ronaldo, Modric, Ibrahimovic, name any Brazilian superstar, they were poor.
Yep.My really good buddy was a stand out HS DE, ( heavy recruit to Tenn - but chose UF instead ) and we talk about this all the time. Its easy to spot the kids that have "it" - they have it from a very early age. Not to say that some cant grow into being a standout player, but the top 1% just have it.