Last year my CESA daughter guest played at a tournament in Charleston with an Anderson team in an older age division. Our team had no matches that weekend and the Anderson team needed manpower due to players being gone and injured. The Anderson team was in no way trying to recruit my daughter and we had no intention of joining this team. For us it was merely about getting more game experience.
When initially asked by the Anderson team we immediately approached my daughter's coach and asked if playing as a guest on the Anderson team was OK. He of course said yes. If he had said no, for any reason, we would not have played with that team. SCYSA Rule or no Rule.
In order to guest play you have to have the players, "player card", which is ussually kept by the manager or team coach. Therefore it would be nearly impossible to guest play without the coach being aware of it. Lets say a player gets his card and decided to play without his regular coaches approval. Wouldn't you think his guest playing would dramatically effect his play time on his regular team, unless that player transferred to the team he was guest playing for.
So as it stood prior to the rule change - Without coaches approval a player better only guest play for a team he was hoping to transfer to. Now we require coaches approval.
I'm still not clear on why the big clubs would be in favor of the rule changes. If it is as suggested in other posts to limit guest playing in order to force kids to tryout with their club, rather than guest playing, couldn't they have accomplished the same thing just by making an internal club policy. Why would you need to make it an SCYSA Rule.
