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Does anyone think the spring leagues and tournaments will be resumed/completed or cancelled like the NCAA sports? What will the affect be on tryouts?

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All spring tournaments should be refunded by host clubs 100% now.

Clubs can make up their minds about player refunds, but I'd just as soon none be made.

My hope is that we can get in tryouts in August, just in time for fall to start. And that presumes that the restrictions put in place this spring and summer work well enough that the fall season is not cancelled.

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This raises a very serious point we all have to face in the coming months regarding financial condition and ability to survive what is quickly becoming both a health and financial crisis.

I had a great conversation last week with a tournament director (host) who was refunding large majority of tournament fees to teams, but withhoding a portion to cover some of the upfront costs and perhaps a little toward their operating budget. I thought that was a fair compromise and understood the challenges many clubs will face that depend on these event revenues just to make ends meet.

Personally I don't see how much of a season can be salvaged (should a miracle cure be found) in our area since US Club (SCCL/CPL leagues included) has shut down all operations until at least weekend of April 18/19 and then you hit the Coast and JI events so will face usual issues of field space; team and ref availability. Only way would be to extend the whole year (like EPL and professional leagues) but that has many challenges (evals, season ending events, coach contracts, will teams still have coaches (see below), ref and player willingness, etc.)

COVID-19 will surely have a very significant and meaningful impact to youth soccer in our State and Nationally. Some local clubs and governng bodies have started laying off coaches and staff and I'd expect a lot more trimming as tournaments, camps, clinics, and other revenue opportunities diminish and reserves are spent. The case of family refunds must depend, I'm sure on what savings a club can make, and whether they can be returned. Some costs are sunk (long term land agreements), others (staff arguably, monthly rentals, adjunct training, etc.) preventable and we should all be responsible in returning any savings back to our membership to a fair degree (whether in credit or cash), rather than profit on misery.

As a coach/parent entered into an April tournament, I'd accept that some of those fees might be withheld should said event fold due to the broader health scare, but certainly would expect some back. After all these events wouldn't have to pay refs or rent extra space now. And full disclosure, CASC hosts no (revenue generating) events and so we are luckily free of at least this dilemna.

Stay safe everyone, and heed the warnings: this is serious.


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I'd assume clubs have loopholes that say they can cancel and not give refunds. The decent clubs usually do anyway, especially if the tournament never starts.

I'd suggest that if a host clubs cancels and just keeps parents' money, tgose parents should tell their clubs not to return to said tournaments.

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Agree, most clubs have 'natural disaster' style clauses on refund policy that could be cited in cases like weather or even COVID-19, and some even broaden that to include no refunds for any cancellations whatsoever without limiting reason.

Seems a shame since that organization will fall into my definition of profiting on misery, since they will now make more revenue by cancelling same event, and not refunding. It almost insents a club to cancel if they keep all the revenue but reduce the costs. At face value more margin for host club to abandon event than run it. Unless of course said event has to pay refs, event staff, field rentals, and other variable/'adhoc' costs whether or not they are used.

Like you, I hope that all hosting organisations look at this closely, accept that everyone is going to struggle financially (many parents will be laid off), and do the right thing while preserving what they need to cover existing/non-negotiable spend.


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One thought, although I don't know how practical it is or how well it would be received, is a club could extend a credit to parents that come back to the club next year.

May be a dumb or impractical idea on my part though.

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I think that is a great idea. I am interested to see how the clubs handle all of this. I hate it, but I think both school and sports are done for the spring.

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I know a tournament in Rock Hill 2 years ago that cancelled due to one of the hurricanes, didn't refund the fees but rolled it over for teams to attend the next year. That might be an option for similar events that were cancelled/postponed this spring.

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Many different facets to this discussion.

At its simplest point is the tournament, or club hosted event where host organization has to consider balancing different priorities to make a decision that satisfies different needs (or be totally selfish and serve only theirs). I think that internal debate is rather easy and has a number of answers including full refund, partial refund, no refund, or credit for future event. I'd favor partial refund (to be fair on hosts sunk costs) as future events and teams are uncertain. Very few teams will look the same in August, and for example, most competitive teams at U14 would not play next spring as U15 (as most would be in JV/Varsity ranks as freshmen).

What is much harder is how will clubs react if (when) the season is cancelled. Our leadership team is discussing this right now and making plans, but our financial model is quite simple so relatively easy for us. Mind you, we still have to consider looking after our coaches, staff, and 3rd party vendors to make sure they can survive and are paid fairly for what activities have happened since January, balanced against family or parental expectation that they should get something back (quite reasonably in most cases).

It will be much, much harder for clubs that have all inclusive fees (that include variable costs like leagues, refs and tournaments). Also the more full time staff and coaches to pay, the higher percentage of your budget is tied to salary cost and the human impact to refunds. Those that make hard decisions earlier, will save some of those costs and so naturally should be more inclined to refund the savings.

Seems to me, there should be a correlation here between diminishing spring costs and increasing refund.

What is most important for our club in our discussion is planning for a scenario where our actions in this regard reflects clearly and transparently that any savings we inevitably gain should be returned in some fashion and not added to our margin (typically target 5%) or profit in these sad times. Exactly how much that is, and how we do that is what we need to figure out.

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Are there any updates to what refunds/credits the local soccer tournament hosts will give for the cancelled tournaments?

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