SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP relegation/promotion

Wow - has this thread taken on life of its own today. On our CESA team we do not obviously face the challenges you do. Our team has 3 kids playing middle school soccer. The level of play between the club and middle school are not even close. For us Club comes first period - end of discussion. It appears you do not have the same sort of experience in the midlands. I certainly sympathize with your position as a club coach, however I still want more club games at U/13 and U/14 in the Spring. I guess it all depends on your goals. I see everything as cause and effect. More club games = better teams = better teams representing South Carolina in Premier League and Regionals = a shot maybe someday at Nationals. But hey I'm a dreamer.

In the states with mandatory promotion/relegation, they deal with many more divisions -- probably a necessary evil to keep divisions from ballooning or dwindling in size, among other reasons. With more divisions the difference between the top and bottom gets smaller, and on a given day a decent division 3 team can give a decent-to-lower level division 2 team all they want.

With just two divisions, it seems to me that the SC clubs do a decent enough job of figuring out where they belong competitive wise. There are exceptions in SC just as there was in the GA teams I examined at the top of this thread. So if SC stays at two divisions, then there probably isn't an urgency to deal with mandatory promotion/relegation.

I believe there might be value into adding a 3rd division at the U13/U14 level with the idea that teams might need to go to a "home and away" games or have some 'cross over' games with each team to get enough games to keep bamr happy, but the games will tend to be more closely contested and that should help both teams regardless of the result.

I'm all for relegation and promotion -- especially from fall to spring seasons! It's a little tougher for fall teams to be relegated from the spring due to tryouts and new members added to each year, but I think if you implemented an 8-man rule for 'nucleus teams' -- not necessarily the same team as a whole, but if 8 players return for ANY team the following year that played together as a team the previous year, it would constitute a team "coming back" -- then they would be subject to relegation/promotion. Without a "rule" in place, I think you'd just have a bunch of 'new' teams formed every year with new names or even change of clubs in order to stay in their league of choice.

In South Carolina you currently have "choice". Size up your team prior to the season and enter the appropriate division that you want to play in (Challenge or Classic). If you are a new team, pick your poison...play at whatever level you want.

In North Carolina, there is no choice. You are either promoted, relegated or you remain in the same division (state premier, classic 1, classic 2 or challenge). If you are a successful challenge team and you want to move up to classic, you have no choice. You have to start at the bottom at classic 2 and earn your way up.

To Hammer's comment about keeping the nucleus of a team together after tryouts in May....in North Carolina the CLUB owns the spot, not the TEAM. The DOC of a club can move players and teams around after tryouts in May and determine who plays where in the Fall.

Both systems have their pro's and con's.

I don't really understand how the number of divisions plays into the discussion concerning promotion and relegation. The number of divisions is driven primarily by the number of teams. I guess the number of divisions could be driven by the political correctness to create more "Champions".

Hurst, agree they both have their pros and cons.

Hammer's comment kind of gets to my previous point about the my team vs my club comment. Currently a nucleus rule exists for the RIIIPL spots, and as explained to me, it's to afford those that earned it the opportunity to play in it, that way it's fair. Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily disagree, but if a clubs team is made stronger at tryouts by transfers into the club, why should SC send a potentially weaker team?