SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Clubs Earning Respect

Soocer05,
I see we are in the same area...and you are correct!! It all comes down to numbers here in the lowcountry..Lots of things come in to play down here...Same senario happen to us when BFA started..Up until that time we only played for one club..So you received your CUFC flyer today too? I think we get all these because our kids are registered within the state for soocer..You should see the crazy places we get fliers from for summer camps..Sorry about the numbers again within your club maybe one day all these clubs will be on the same page..

I have never figured out the reason to charge a child or children to try-out. I think clubs should do everything in their means to get any and all kids to try-out for the differnet levels. I think having a fee limits certian Kids from having the opportunity to try-out. After 10+ years being around and active in club soccer i think the Focus on development has been lost and most clubs have become a Business.

My big problem with paying for tryouts is it seems that the coaches already know who they want on the team and who they don't want on the team (with just a couple of exceptions). So to charge $30 for everyone when they are really only looking at a few is.....(you fill in the blank).

Some might call that supporting the club and ultimately youth soccer in south carolina. You could actually consider it more of a contribution than the dues, league fees and uniform fees which are self serving in a way.

I agree with Soccer16, the nominal fee clubs charge for tryouts is put right back in the soccer community.

Sure, some might view it as supporting the club. Others might resent that because they already support the club in a variety of ways (volunteering, donations , etc.) I believe that if more of the parents realized what went on with the tryout process, they would a little bit upset at the fee. Like someone else said, shouldn't the goal be to get more to tryout? So to me, the club is just "taking" this money because some players have no shot at making a team and the coaches know it.

So the problem isn't really the fee but the "tryout process"? Yes the goal should be to get as many as possible to tryout but the club must protect itself in some way against mass tryout and then rejection by selected players. Who controls the process anyways the players or the club? By the club requiring a small fee to tryout they are recouping some of their risk exposure as it relates to the club as a whole. I would expect most clubs to return feedback on reasons a player was not selected for the team. But yet again most of the big clubs are trying to serve all levels of soccer by having the various levels offered so they will be working with most to take those skills to the next level.

Let me try to explain the fees this way. There is currently a structure in place where a child can play soccer and not pay a tryout fee. This structure is built to provide soccer to the largest audience possible while trying to keep costs low for the players. It is called recreational soccer.

Club soccer on the other hand is meant for the select few players that want to enjoy a more demanding soccer environment and are willing to pay the high costs involved in bringing it to them. They want to have qualified coaches, more practices, and greater competition to name a few. All these things take a very heavy financial commitment from the club and the player. The club is a lot of times forking over loads of money before they collect a cent from the players. There are many logistical reasons for this; such as ordering uniforms, t-shirts, locking in coaches, land fees, soccer equipment and on and on. If the club waited for the money to be collect by all the parents then the season would be over before they could afford anything. Now that you realize a club has to prepay all these items then you can make the leap that they would like to know in advance how many players they will be fielding. Locking in the coaches is one of the biggest expenses for a club and also one of the hardest things to do. To top it off parents and players are asking clubs to tell them who the coaches are 3 months before tryouts even start for every team. So how does a club know how many players are actually looking to play and provide the financial commitment and not just signed up for the heck of it because it was free? How does a club know how many coaches to lock up? Is it fair to ask a coach just to wait to see if there is work, or does the coach have a reasonable expectation that the club will do its best to make sure they have a team to coach? So the fee is earnest money for the club. It is really a very small fee, when you consider the cost of club soccer, to keep people from presigning up to 10 different clubs with the intention of only showing up for one or none at all, which happened a lot when we had free try-outs. The other clubs being a backup just in case little Salley or Johnny doesn't make the "A" team. This helps the club to better organize the distribution of players, coaches, and field usage.

kdlsc: I am curious to what volunteering at the club level you have done.

I am afraid that you nailed it Chapindad, club soccer is about the select few who are willing [and can afford] to pay the high cost of playing at these rarified levels. I agree that tryout fees are probably necessary, and inconsequential, in the current club scheme. But this is a sad thing.