Aston94 said:
AgGrad99 said:
Quote:
2. Provide a scholarship for one low-income player for every select team, and require all select teams provide one low-income scholarship player on their own, so each team would have two full rides available for low income players.
I understand your heart..but that would personally piss me off....since it's a big financial commitment for our family, and I wouldnt qualify.
Most clubs do offer scholarships though, through fund raising, etc.
Has nothing to do with my heart or how you feel about it. I pay for 2 girls every year in select soccer. It has to do with getting low income kids with a ton of potential into our system. We are the only country in the world where soccer is played predominately by higher income individuals, and a lot of it is our pay to play system.
You want to grow the game and get kids more involved and get better athletes? We have to get those kids whose parents cannot afford select soccer from dropping out of soccer at age 11.
Don't academy teams already cover most if not all costs for players including uniforms, coaches fees, etc? Our club is that way.
Most select clubs already have scholarships available. IMO there no need for every team to have 2 scholarships available for low income players. The U11 division 6 team comprised of kids who can barely dribble a ball and run at the same time does not need to be providing scholarships for low income players. Not to mention inner city youth are not attracted to soccer at all as AAU BB dominates their life.
The US cannot look at EU and say "they don't pay for soccer like we do"...well no kidding. The EU is not the US. We also have football, BB and Baseball to distract our kids. If soccer and BB were the only two sports that dominated 95% of our culture, their would be plenty of money available for everyone. But that is simply not reality right now in the US. Last time I looked, despite all their troubles the NFL and NCAA FB dominate the money flow to sports in this country (and I'm sure BB is up there as well).
How exactly do you decide who gets those scholarships? Do you really trust US Soccer and all its politics to dole out the money to those who deserve it the most? I see a USDA 'reduced lunch' program in action here where 50% of the beneficiaries are committing fraud to qualify and you're not really helping anyone at the end of the day.
I do agree we need to find a way to get the best athletes interested in soccer. But I do not believe handing out scholarships is going to solve that problem.
EDIT: just to add, again, not saying scholarships are bad, but at it's core, if you want kids interested in playing soccer, you need to get them interested at an early age with marketing and creating a larger appeal to those families. Right now inner city kids could care less about soccer. No one is bringing it to them like the NBA does so why should they care? Regardless of the cost, soccer does not appeal to them at all.