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MEMORANDUM

TO: SC Youth Soccer Members

FROM: Steve Ballentine, President

SUBJECT: Report on SC Youth Soccer Board Meeting of March 18, 2007

DATE: March 21, 2007

The SC Youth Soccer Board of Directors held its regularly scheduled meeting on Sunday, March 18, 2007, in Columbia, SC. Listed below is a summary of relevant matters considered by the Board of Directors at this meeting.


1. The Board agreed to pay the entry fees for all SC Youth Soccer State Championship and Reg. III Premier League Championship teams attending the 2007 Southern Regional Tournament in Oklahoma City.

2. The Board agreed to pay the entry fees for all Presidents’ Medal Cup State Championship teams attending the 2007 Region III President’s Cup in Tampa, Florida.

3. As required, the Board agreed to pay the travel and lodging expenses for 11 referees and 3 referee assessors to attend the 2007 Southern Regional Tournament in Oklahoma City. It was also agreed to provide a stipend and a tournament shirt for these same referees and assessors.

4. The Board approved changes to SC Youth Soccer Rule C-10, Guest Player Roster, which will require;

· A player’s present team coach must sign the Guest Player Roster before the player is allowed to participate as a guest player for another team.

· Any player who guest plays for another team is not allowed to transfer to that team during the current seasonal year, unless their present coach approves of the transfer.

5. The Board approved changes to SC Youth Soccer Rule, C-31 Transfers; which will not allow a player to transfer to another club until all documented financial obligations to their present club have been satisfied. The present coach’s signature on the transfer, releases the player from all obligations to the team.

6. The SC Youth Soccer Spring 2007 State Cup events will be held at the Summerville Soccer Club complex in Summerville SC. Applications are available on the web site www.scysa.org

7. The Board approved for SC Youth Soccer clubs to advertise their tournaments on the SC Youth Soccer web site at a reduced fee of $100 per event, per calendar month.

8. SC Youth Soccer District Council meetings will be held on Sunday, April 29th in their respective districts. Contact District Commissioners for specific information regarding these meetings.

9. SC Youth Soccer Registrar will hold registrar certification meetings in all districts as scheduled. Refer to the SC Youth Soccer calendar on the web site www.scysa.org for exact dates, times and locations.

10. US Youth Soccer announced they will require a fee increase from all State Associations for the ’08 / ’09 seasonal year. This will be a 100% increase from $1.00 to $2.00 per registered player. US Youth Soccer will also require an additional fee increase of $.50 per player for the ’10 / ’11 seasonal year.

11. This year the SC Youth Soccer will celebrate its 30th anniversary during the 2007 Presidents’ Workshop which will be held on August 4, 2007 at the Embassy Suites in Columbia, SC.

So to point 5.... What if a player is on scholarship? How is the obligation met? and if it is an obligation to the club then it should be a club board member who releases the player not just the coach.

To point #10....where can I buy stock in USYSA?

Okay...I know that others have told me I'm too hard on the SCYSA, so let me ask this as a question. How does anything on this list help either (a) grow the sport of soccer in South Carolina or (b) help the actual players?

Specifically, how does #4 and #5 do anything but hurt players?

How does #10 do anything but lower growth?

I know I must be missing something here, because it doesn't seem possible that a group of people dedicated to helping promote and grow youth soccer would do things that would do the exact opposite. So someone, please, give me a hand here and explain it to me.

#4 is extremely restrictive and, in my opinion, stinks!

I have no problem with requiring that financial obligations are met which is what I believe #5 is aimed at. I really don't see how it hurts the player to require them to be financially responsible.

If I read this correct, #10 is not within SCYSA's control. It still hurts growth, but on a national level rather than just within SC.

Coach P: I think you have some really good points here. Starting with #10, obviously, you're absolutely right that a USYSA fee increase isn't the fault of the SCYSA. However, what would be interesting would be to see some kind of internal insight at the SCYSA regarding the impact of this fee increase -- do they believe that their market is inelastic and that fees don't impact the number of players, or that it's elastic and that this will hurt their registration numbers? You don't get the feeling that there is a lot of insight into this. It's only in the last President's letter than there's been any discussion (and this was notably brief) regarding registration number growth (or lack thereof) -- and you get the feeling that this may have been motivated more by their reading message board chatter than some drive toward a vision of promoting and growing youth soccer in South Carolina.

If I'm at the SCYSA, I'd at least make the argument to the USYSA that South Carolina is a relatively poor state and that fees should be based on the relative income levels in the state. It might not fly -- and probably wouldn't -- but at least in preparing to make the argument you'd show the USYSA that you're serious about growing the sport and might pave the way for future concessions, particularly with respect to grants, that you request in order to grow youth soccer.

On point #5, if the SCYSA uses the past as the guide, they are going to leave definition and enforcement up to the club. This means that the definition of "club" financial responsibilities versus "team" financial responsibilities may be defined at the club level, and that the treatment of "financial need" or "scholarship" players is also treated at the club level.

Coach P: On #4, I appreciate your attempt to assign a positive motive to the SCYSA's decision on this.

You're certainly right that increasing the bureaucracy associated with guesting will make it harder to get guest players.

In addition, from a player's point of view, the restriction against transfer after guesting means that a player who wishes to evaluate another team during a season should never guest but should simply transfer. I believe that the law of unintended consequences is going to bite some clubs here -- instead of making it less likely that kids will transfer to larger clubs with more access to the higher level tournaments, I believe that this will make it much more likely since the clubs that previously would allow a player to guest will now simply say if a kid wants to get exposure at Disney (for example), they have to join the team.