Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
The Elite Clubs National League was founded in 2009 and continues to lead by daring to do things differently, embedded with grit, collaboration and tenacity – all things learned from the beautiful game. The ECNL protects and propels the integrity of the game and everyone it impacts by facilitating the perfect symmetry of excellence and humility, exclusivity and accessibility, freedom and community. We believe that challenging everyone to rise to their best creates game-changers that live well, long after cleats are unlaced. Born out of the belief in a better way. Continued in the ever-evolving pursuit of excellence.
Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
A Discussion Continued: Ideas to Improve American Youth Soccer Part 2 | Ep. 143
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Let us know the topics of interest to you!
Following a robust discussion and an incredible response from you, the Breaking the Line listeners, ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken continue their discussion of ideas to improve youth soccer within the United States, and expand on topics previously discussed in the Special Edition episode two weeks ago.
Since the last podcast, Lavers did a deep dive into how solidarity payments and training compensation work in other parts of the world, not just for international transfers but domestic transfers as well, and brings hard data with him to showcase exactly how much other clubs are spending, and how much these clubs are also receiving.
Armed with this information, Lavers examines then what those types of payments could look like in the United States, along with failed attempts to institute them previously in American soccer. The two then spend time brainstorming how training compensation would work in the US, what are the potential barriers to that system, and what are other forms of funding youth clubs could receive.
It's an absolutely riveting discussion that brings a ton of research and data to the table, and paints a strong picture of the global economics of soccer.
As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on Youtube and all your favorite podcast platform, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels.
Welcome And Around The League
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the August 5, 2026 edition of Breaking the Line, the East TNL Podcast, featuring ETNL President and CEO Christian Lavers and East TNL Vice President and Chief of Staff Doug Bracken. This podcast, like the World Cup we just witnessed in our country, is gaining traction by the episode. And it is because Christian and Doug are tackling the issues that are out there and that are on your mind. This past World Cup led to a lot of pay-to-play talk, and the leaders of the East TNL are not just sitting back on that. They are researching the rest of the world. They are working to collaborate with others, and they want to help and offer solutions. They will do more of that today, and you will love some of the detail they go into on both fronts, what the rest of the world is doing, and perhaps what can happen here in the USA. Can't wait to get Kristen and Doug to you, but first we go to Around the League on Breaking the Line. It's awards season within the ECNL, so make sure to follow the East TNL on all social channels as the league announces all conference teams and players of the year, all American teams and national players of the year, all regional league teams, quick goal coaches of the year, and overall club champions. The all-day conference teams were announced yesterday, and the All-America and National Players of the Year are today. The rest are still to come. We also want to take one last moment to recognize all of the 2025-26 East NL National Champions. For East TL Girls, U13 Slammers FC, U14, San Diego Surf, U15 SoCal Blues, U16, Real Colorado National, and U17 FC Dallas, East Legion League Girls, U-13 Champion FC Dallas, U-14 SoCal Blues, U-15 S FFA, U-16 champs, Quick Strike FC, and U-17 champ Sunrise. For ETNL Boys, U-13 Champions, Crossfire Academy, U-14 Champs, LAFC Stocal, at U-15, Real Colorado Academy, U-16, Crossfire Academy, and U-17 Utah Avalanche. ECNL Regillages Boys, U-13 Champion, Alabama FC Huntsville, U-14 Champs, Houstonians FC, U-15 Champion, Folsom Lake Surve. U-16 Villarreal Virginia Academy. U-17 champion Houstonians FC. Congrats to all the champs, and in fact, all of the teams that make up the great ECL. And this has been Around the League, and as promised, another real life right here, right now discussion with Christian Labers and Doug Bracken.
Tahoe Reset And Big Ideas
SPEAKER_00So I turn it over to them.
SPEAKER_01Hello, Mr. Bracken. How are you?
SPEAKER_03I am great, Christian. How about yourself?
SPEAKER_01I'm good. You are on a on a little recovery.
SPEAKER_03Little family vacay to our favorite place in the world, Lake Tahoe. I guess we haven't been everywhere in the world, but so far, this is our favorite place. So uh did some hiking, hung out at the lake, playing some golf, just trying to, you know, decompress.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm hoping with with all of that beautiful nature around you and a break from regular routine that your brain is percolating with all sorts of really good new ideas to come back to add to the ECNL and our continued growth in providing the best youth sports experience in the world.
SPEAKER_03So many ideas. So many ideas. I've I've really honestly thought about that almost every minute that I've been here. Well, never the never the crystal blue water or you know, the fact that it literally has not had been a cloud in the sky one time since since I've been here for the last you know seven or eight days.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a California thing, it's not just like Tahoe.
SPEAKER_03I dude, I I hear it. I I've had many conversations this week about California. I know California gets a lot of stick about certain things, but man, it's it's pretty much all here.
SPEAKER_01Your wallet is lighter, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, but you know, it's if you want something nice, Christian, you gotta pay for it, I guess. But yes, you're right. It is it is not a cheap, cheap place to to live, but as it were, it's been it's been fabulous. So I highly recommend uh resets uh as it as it is. But how about yourself? You've been uh languishing in ECNL work because you're tireless, you're a lot more tireless worker than I am.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm not sure about that, but I I I can tell you this. I think that we we we provoked some interesting discussion on our last podcast. If uh feedback and commentary on on uh online is any indication of that, which is really good because it means we're talking about something that people are interested in. And you know, we thought, well, let's let's go deeper in those discussions
World Cup Takeaways And Coaching Continuity
SPEAKER_01today. So, I mean, we talked last week about ideas on improving American soccer, yeah, what can be done, uh some proposed changes in the professional level with respect to American players, proposed changes in the collegiate level in terms of uh getting more American players and reducing internationals. Uh, some brief discussion on the structure of college soccer and how that needs to change, but a very concrete zone one proposal. Uh 12 and below, and how to invest in zone one. We talked about the reality that there are so few professional clubs in this continent that comparing in any way to the professional structure and how that funds development in other countries is almost impossible mathematically.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And how the the uh creation of more pro clubs at subsidized development is actually the really the only way that you deal with uh reducing costs and eliminating costs for the top players. We talked about culture, the importance of having facilities, you know, especially in dense urban areas. Uh, did I miss anything in our in our specific plans? Oh, that no, I think that and the youth national team identification, focusing the specific program on amateur players, yeah, not professionals.
SPEAKER_03So so let me just uh quick pivot because I think this kind of ties into the conversation, uh, because US soccer is uh obviously part of part of the equation. Mauricio Panchatino signed uh a contract extension to 2030. Um how does that influence what we're talking about? Does it influence or does it have no influence? Um and then, like, what are your general thoughts about that before we like really dig in? Because I know you you've done a lot of work and got some stats and some interesting information to share.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, obviously, Panchatino stuff's breaking today uh when we're recording. Um I I think it's great. Like I said, we've said before, I thought the mentality around the team, the way they played, uh was really great in the World Cup. And so I think it's great that we're gonna have some consistency. He'll be here for a full cycle. Um, not as you know, unfortunately, not gonna be at home, uh, but I think you know this allows the that team the consistency to build. He'll, I'm sure he'll add lots of new players over the course of the next four years. So I think it's great. I'm excited for it. What about you?
SPEAKER_03Totally agree. I thought you saw you really saw some change. Uh obviously we talked about last week, you know, kind of a bummer ending. But I definitely you saw a lot of positive signs. Uh at least it appeared that there were a lot of positive signs. And so, yeah, I'm I'm I'm here for it. I think when somebody has that kind of success, uh you you know, sticking with it is is a good thing and bringing that consistency. And it he clearly has a a plan and a way to implement it. Does it have any any effect do you think on the greater like youth landscape or landscape of the US?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I mean, before I uh turn to that, I mean I I I I will say, and I think you'd agree with this. Sometimes you gotta lose a big one before you win a big one. Perfect example of that is obviously 1980 and Miracle. Uh great movie. But uh so I I actually think the fact that he will be around, maybe that Belgian game and what happened there actually is a catalyst for the next time they're on that stage, because I think they'll be on that stage. And um, whether that was internal, external, whatever the factors were, I think I think that's that's helpful too. But what what does it do? I don't know. I mean, I think the men's national team manager, just like the women's national team manager, is like five degrees of separation from you know the the youth space. I think continuity, consistency, having a great philosophy and approach at that level certainly can help. Um my guess is that there'll be trickle-down effects with like the U20s and maybe the U17s in consistency of approach. Um, how much that goes beyond that with the national team head coach? Uh, I think that's a different job. That's that's I don't have any inside, you know, baseball on that. That's just an opinion.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I generally agree with that. But I do think it's a good thing for the men's national team. So we'll see. See
Why Pay-To-Play Becomes The Villain
SPEAKER_03what happens.
SPEAKER_01You know, we may go around a little bit a couple different places in this discussion, but I think one, you know, one of the things that has has been talked and debated the most is uh with respect to pay-to-play is is how how do we fund it here and and what is the absence of funding mean? And I think one of the questions that almost comes inherently from that is if we don't think it's being done right here, whatever right means, well, how is it done in other places?
SPEAKER_03And um, we talked uh a little bit about, and I think maybe the most important variable is that the the club presence, the professional club density in these other yeah, I I thought that was the most important thing that we kind of talked about is the the lack of that, you know, wide-ranging professional infrastructure in this country, and that it's so small in comparison to some of the other people that we keep invariably comparing ourselves to comparing ourselves to things that we uh we would have to have 10x and more of professional clubs to even reach the lower range of some of these countries like Spain that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Um, and that doesn't even touch getting into what you know England and Argentina and those types of companies those types of countries have with respect to professional club numbers. But we didn't talk about okay, well, how how does funding reach the youth uh the youth structures and the youth teams in those countries and what does that look like? So tried to pull some data on this. And again, we'll we might be back and forth uh in various areas here, but one one thing I tried to pull was the investment that the per club investment that is being done um in in each of these countries. We have you know it's hard to get all so that that's the professional organization or professional club uh in and of itself, how much money they put in to youth development into youth development, and so um you know you pull some stuff from AI and you try and cite as much as you can. And you know, already we have a a little bit of difference here in some documentation. Um I I pulled from UEFA's 2020 training facilities and youth investment landscape report. Okay, so that's where I'm pulling this data from. Um so a little bit outdated.
SPEAKER_03Sounds legit.
SPEAKER_01It's legit, it's legit, it's a little outdated. Um, you can find this stuff on UEFA.com. Um but as of 2020, and I think you could say this is gonna go higher, and I think Jacob may have found in England specifically how much higher. Um and a report.
SPEAKER_03But I think but I think what we're trying to do here by by saying this is we're trying to paint the picture of what it looks like in other countries. Obviously, the more you you know, the more it evolves and the the longer it goes, you know, the numbers change. Probably they get bigger. But I think what our intention here is to paint the picture. Paint the picture.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, let's let's look at this. As of 2020, according to UEFA, uh, average annual youth development budget per top division club. So we're only talking first first division, so the English Premiership, the Bundesliga League, uh so in England, six point one million dollars per club invested in now. I I say Jacob has some different data here uh according to the FA, and maybe Jacob, you can give us the date on this. That number is now 8.75. So uh I would imagine that is a more uh recent number than 2020, but it tells us we're in the range. Uh and you can probably add then you know a 20% premium, you know, on this or 20, 25 premium on these numbers if you take 2020 and fast forward to 2026. But England, 6.1 million, Germany 5.3 million per top division club, France 4.7 million, Italy, 4.6 million, Spain, 3.4 million, uh you drop down, Portugal down at 1.8 million, Belgium 1.7 million. So uh though those numbers give you a sense. So if we take top division clubs, so you got 20 in England, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh 20 times if we say six, that's a that's a pretty easy 120 million. Now they're saying closer to nine, like 180 million. Um Germany, I'm not sure how many clubs are in the Bundesliga, but that gives you a sense of how much money is being put by these clubs into funding youth development. So that's coming out of the club annual budget.
SPEAKER_03And could I could I say this just to just to make a make an educated thought here is probably the expense for the competition at these at this these youth levels is less there because of the concentration of pro clubs. So maybe that you know drives that number down a little bit. You know, I obviously you don't have to go as far to to find competition in those countries. They're smaller, there's a higher concentration that probably drives some costs down. Whereas maybe if you if we put it in the US kind of market, we have 32 MLS clubs that are not mostly close to each other. So the competition that they have to find is more expensive kind of stuff. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_01I think that's a fair point. I mean, I I don't know exactly what is covered in all of these things, and we can dive into some more of that um there. But that if if that's coming from if that's coming from the uh the budgets of the clubs, then the other source, and we referenced this in the past, is um UEFA training and solidarity payments. UAFA training and solidarity payments, so training compensation and solidarity payments.
Pro Club Budgets For Youth Development
SPEAKER_01And so I pulled some data on that. Um, and interesting, interestingly enough, um, we have some data from 2018-19, so again, a little bit older, but in 2018-19, uh, 15 national associations. So this looked at who who countries that had clubs in the Champions League group stage. And so 2018-19, that was a hundred and two point nine million dollars in training compensation and solidarity, that was paid out. 40 associations that did not have participants in the 2018-19 Champions League group got another 25 million. So you look at in total about 128 million pounds, I think that is, that was paid out in 1819 through international transfers. So, this is what happens when a player goes from a club in one country to a club in another country. FIFA has mechanisms where in an international transfer situation, uh, there is payment that filters down to all of the clubs that were involved in that player's development up into a certain point. And I think it's um 23, maybe. And I might be a little, I might be wrong on that. But that was 2018-19. And they have since ref uh revised that uh process for solidarity payments as of mid-2026. So now we're we're very modern day. Since they revised the uh solidarity process using something called the clearinghouse, which started in 2022, they have almost one billion dollars in training awards allocated from 2022 to 2026? Yes.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Wow. That's that's a pretty big number. You can do a lot with one billion dollars.
SPEAKER_01Yes, now six hundred and forty million of that has been successfully distributed um to the training clubs. And I take that as that there's a certain percentage of that money that has not been paid because they don't have appropriate documentation or claims uh made for that. But if you look at uh they had a milestone in July of 2025, they had 500 million allocated, 300 million distributed to roughly 7,000 clubs, okay, through this uh solidarity payment mechanism. That was an average.
SPEAKER_03And this is this is UEFA, right?
SPEAKER_01No, this is a FIFA.
SPEAKER_03This is a FIFA, okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh there's an average of $43,000 per club. So again, uh in July of 2025, they had said $500 million US dollars allocated, $300 million distributed to roughly 7,000 clubs. That is uh, and and then and then the contribution here, just to give people a sense, is up to 5% of a player transfer fee is distributed to clubs that train the player between ages 12 to 23. Okay. So when we talk about how does money flow down to deal with pay-to-play in every other country in the world, first of all, you have this enormous professional investment that's being made in clubs. And we look, and again, if you had to be very general and generic, you'd say in Europe, those numbers and then Europe spending more because it's more expensive in Europe, they're spending more money. You're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of five million pounds or six or more a year per top. And then you have these FIFA solidarity payments, which again go back to the clubs when there's an international transfer. So I have some data also from the World Cup in 2026. Transfers involving 530 players that were called up to the FIFA World Cup in 2026 triggered 221 million dollars in training, compensation, and solidarity. Uh, and that uh those transfers uh involve uh 46 of the 48 teams um in FIFA, and then another 768 million in training compensation and solidarity has been generated for transfers involving players not participating in the World Cup. Um, going uh again, this is as of mid-2026. So we're talking about you know hundreds of millions.
SPEAKER_03Is that is that also outside, Christian, of what is happening domestically in these countries?
SPEAKER_01Yes. And so that that's an interesting point, which I didn't appreciate. And I don't know how many people know these things. And again, I'm not claiming to be an expert on this stuff. We're uh we know some, we probably know more than some people and less than a lot of other people. We're trying, we're trying to paint a picture. We're painting a picture, right, of the money and where it comes from. But yes, FIFA training compensation solidarity applies to international transfers. So again, that's a club in country A, and a player moves from there to a club in country B. It does not cover domestic transfers, which is a whole nother source of revenue.
FIFA Solidarity Payments And The Clearinghouse
SPEAKER_01And so it uh it appears that there are a variety of different ways of handling that, um, depending on how it's done. We found one in England, which uh was set up by the Premier League and the Elite Player Performance Plan. Um, and so this applies to academies in England and how they manage uh payments of domestic transfers. So this would be from an English club to another English club, yeah. Uh, because these would not be triggered by solidarity. So these clubs have collectively worked out a way to say we're going to also fund each other as there is movement of players from our academies internally, so that a club, and typically you can imagine most of that movement is probably a player in a lower level or a smaller club. Who is now being signed by a club. And they've recognized we need to incentivize that club to and hopefully be able to develop more of these players that can move up. So they've they've uh they've done that uh through this thing called the ePPP. And so in England, you have levels of categories in your academies. Category one academy is the highest level academy based on standards that they do. Um and they changed uh changed when they implemented the uh ePPP, and I'm not sure exactly when that date was. Maybe Jacob, you can find that. They uh did a couple of things to change the way recruitment and therefore transfer happened with within England. Number one is they abolished the 90-minute rule, which prohibited previously clubs from signing people from more than 90 minutes away under the age of 18. Um, so that was abolished by PBP, and then they introduced fixed compensation uh when a player moves between academies from under 9 to under 16. Some of that is based on the categorization of the club, and some of that is based upon the years that a player spent in a club. So um in there was some 2020, uh, I think this was implemented uh as I see this, and Jacob says in 2012, and the numbers were increased in 2022. But uh as of 2012, there was one fixed rate for players aged 9 to 11 as they went from one academy to another, and then there was a much higher rate for players aged 12 to 16 as they move. So again, this goes back in 2012. The uh original rate for a transfer of a nine-year-old from one pro academy in England to another was uh about 3,000 pounds. Um, that has increased significantly. I see some stuff here that says at U11 it's around a 400% increase in that amount. But uh when you talk about a kid 12 to 16, you're looking at somewhere between 13,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds per year uh that that player was in an academy to another um things. And then there's also some contingencies attached if the player ultimately makes it to the first team um or plays in the Premier League, actually. So what's interesting about this is that through the EPPP, the pro clubs in England are compensating other academies in England for domestic transfers that are not covered by international. So you have the amount invested by the club as a starting point. You have FIFA, who uh introduces solidarity and training compensation for international transfers of players from one country to another, and then you have a variety of uh domestic uh compensation that is set by the clubs or the FAs or whoever it is in each of these countries, the EPPP being the most detailed and probably formulaic of that. Um so I'll also listen looking here, and it seems that there is some amount of um fixed domestic or agreed-upon domestic compensation also in Germany, um, in Spain, in France as well. That they've uh and I look here and it says it's a little bit more loosey-goosey in that, but that there has been um acknowledgement that they need to pay and to incentivize development that is free.
SPEAKER_03So two things that really stand out on this are go back to what we talked about before, and that is without a robust um professional infrastructure, professional club infrastructure, this is impossible. Right? So without so without a robust pro club infrastructure, this is this is tough. Okay. So that's the first thing, and that goes back to uh your point of we need more pro clubs.
SPEAKER_01And you know, and I you know what that structure looks like and all that is you know, we we don't want to be overly simple simple in in our mind by saying, you know, oh we need pro rel and all this stuff, because I don't, you know, that goes kind of by the way, Doug, just to jump on that, the pro structure where this amount of money is trading hands for kids nine to 16, also has some other effects that people might not want so much, right? This large amounts of money, and these are players who are owned for practical rights or their rights are owned, um, through this. And that that is not generally the way that we look at youth sports in America, um owned like this. So let's also, as we're as people are screaming about pay-to-play and pro development, and as we're talking about how that is actually funded, there is there is a different side of that. I want to call it a dark side, but there is a side and an impact.
SPEAKER_03There are realities to it, yeah, to the impact. The other thing that we talked about a lot, and this is something that I believe, like you know, deep is this changes the incentive. And when the incentive is to uh develop players so those players can move on, or that those you know to higher levels, because there's a you know, uh a pecking order, if you will, everywhere, you know, no matter where you are, but these lower academies being able to push players on and receive compensation for that and be incentivizes and be rewarded for what the work that they're doing incentivizes them to keep doing that work, which in theory, if that happens on a big scale, produces more players because the focus is on the individual player development.
SPEAKER_01Well, and it creates a self-reinforcing ecosystem of investment at the at the lower level. That is that rewarded through performance and incentives as a player gets through, which encourages more investment at the lower levels. And by the way, that investment is not just encouraged at the lower levels because the biggest clubs in the world are investing in their academy. But they're obviously, you know, if you're one of the big five or six in England, you're gonna spend it, you know, at a different level than somebody in league. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. You're gonna generally you're gonna get the best players at some point. You're just gonna buy them because you can't.
SPEAKER_03So we and we've said that you know the incentives here at at the youth level
England’s Domestic Fees And Incentives
SPEAKER_03are you know backwards, right? Because they're it's uh it's all about winning. Um and we don't want to take away the importance of winning, which we said before or whatever, but it's it's kind of interesting to me, Christian, and this is kind of this is gonna be a hot take. Um so buckle up for this hot take, and that is the people screaming about pay to play and all the ills of it are the same people that are demanding of winning, it seems like, yeah, you know, like pay to play is terrible, but you must win. And if you don't win, then we're out of here and we're gonna go somewhere else. There's no yeah, we've experienced this firsthand. Like, there's a parent, yes, there's so little patience for the idea of development, there's so little look for a long-term path or a you know, uh a way for this player to go on this process in this process of development. And I, you know, the the thing that I'll say is, and I I I have empathy uh uh having seen it from the lens of doing it and running a club, and having seen it through the lens of having a kid who goes through it, it's probably hard to know if what a club is selling about development is actually true or not true, because it's hard to know what the other than a track record or what the qualification, you know, it's just hard to say. Yeah, the parents are these snake oil sales salesmen or are they, and that is probably just because there's there are more soccer people and people that played soccer who are becoming parents who have more knowledge about the sport. So it's better. But like to me, again, it's it's interesting that the screaming about winning happens, and then then in the same sense, we're screaming about a lack of player development.
SPEAKER_01I do think, I do think that's an interesting take that the parent who who's demanding winning and who leaves if there's not enough winning is the parent that also wants everything covered, and if everything was covered, they wouldn't be able to leave, by the way. Correct how much winning or not there was, because their rights would be on. And I want to put a specific on this because the example that was provided um that that uh is used here when we talk about the ePPP within England is if you're at a cat won academy, so this is this is the top-level academy, so you're you're Chelsea United, it's your advertising. Um a player at a cat one academy from age 12 who leaves at age 15 could generate around 160,000 pounds of domestic compensation. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money for one player that goes from a cat one to a cat one. Um, so I want to I want to pause that because we talk about that sort of and solidarity, you know, solidarity is the word that is used by the FIFA uh mechanisms, which I think is a great, a great word. You know, the pro clubs agreeing to compensate like this also shows solidarity, especially when that compensation goes down, not just a pro club, but it goes down to the other clubs, other leagues and youth clubs and all that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's the it's the rising tide lifts all chips, right?
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna pause on that because we say, okay, they have all this domestic stuff in other countries. What do we have here? And the answer is pretty much nothing. There's some arguments about why, and I can go through that, but I want to also pivot for a second because you've talked in the past about culture and how, and we I think we both agree that culture is a huge piece in performance and having more players at the highest levels, and that goes back to what is the exposure and involvement of the kids uh in the game at younger and younger ages, how widespread is the game for them to be a part of. So I have some data here on a on population and registered players, and then some you know, the rough rate of registered players um per thousand people. Because I also that gives you a little metric of population and culture of soccer or soccer. So now, as you can imagine, different countries are gonna have very different accuracy or or even ability to collect these numbers. One of the most, and this is not going to surprise you either, one of the most data rich is the Germans. Yes, insert whatever stereotype you want. So approximately a population of around 84 million people in 25, 26. Um, they said uh registered players around 8 million, 2.4 million were active. I'm not sure what the distinction is between registered and active, but that's about 28 to 30 people per thousand in Germany.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Registered soccer players. It's pretty good. Pretty good. That's a lot of soccer. The Netherlands, okay, about 18 million in population. Uh 1.2-ish million members. You know, again, I think they get a little bit more Lucy in this members and how you define that. It's about 65 to 70 people per thousand that are soccer. Yeah, even better. Yeah, France, 67, 69 million population, about 2 million players or licensees as referred there. It's about 27 to 31 people per thousand. So you get a point. Spain, around 25. Okay, you drop down. Um, Brazil, huge numbers of people, but not very good records. So you can't really get data on that as far as least as far as I was I was able to find. But let's go to the US. Okay, 340, 345. I don't know what the population guess on that is, million people. If we use the data that is most commonly used in American soccer, it's about three million registered players. Yeah. Players, seven to nine people per thousand.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you look at culture, so we go at a top-level Germany, okay. Very rich soccer culture, um, very, very um good data. 28 to 30 active uh registrants per thousand people. That's three times bigger than what the US has, you know. So you talk about enrichment and involvement and engagement in the game across all of that. There's a there's a piece of that to hear. Um, because again, these arguments, I think part of our discussion's been there's a lot more to it than just the youth structure. There's a lot, you know, pay-to-play isn't done here. There is very little investment because there's not a lot of pro teams. They're investing a lot, so don't want to minimize that investment. But there's very few pro clubs that are actually investing um money.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the primary investment vehicle here is the consumer.
SPEAKER_01Is the consumer, right? But then we also talk about culture and we talk about okay, and by the way, the density of pro clubs is one version of culture. This is actually the playing culture as met the metrics we can find. And by the way, if people have better metrics than this, we welcome them sharing them. It's always helpful to have people share knowledge and information with us rather than just uh scream about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I think it if people who are listening need to understand the point we're trying to, the point is we're trying to paint a picture of that this oversimplified reasoning that people have as to our success or failure at the national team level, the youth level, whatever, um oh, it's the pay to play, and that's that's the problem, is is pretty uh is a pretty weak, it's a pretty weak response. And so what we're trying to do is help people understand that it's it's just it's not that simple. There are a lot more complex pieces of this. So, and so I don't know if you're ready or not, but I I'm gonna ask this now because I think, and you and I feel this way just from a leadership perspective, that we hate when people just talk about problems and have no solutions. Obviously, on the last podcast, we talked about several solutions. Uh,
Soccer Culture By Participation Rates
SPEAKER_03your zone one solution, I thought is brilliant, um, a brilliant idea for a reasonably uh not huge investment. Um so tell me what you're thinking as far as solutions.
SPEAKER_01Nice teaser. I'm gonna get to it. Okay, I'm gonna get to it. I'm just setting the stage, and and I think, you know, we're not defending pay to play, it's just something we're not attacking it either. Let's be clear. Because, you know, I remember being in Valencia, um, and Valencia has a free academy and they have a pay-to-play academy. And you can guess, you know, the best players are being paid for, and the kids who want to be the best players are paying for it, right? So that there's going to be pay to play to provide sport. Okay, that's gonna happen. We're talking about what what are the factors that are different in other parts of the country, uh parts of the world than what was listen.
SPEAKER_03By the way, also my children pay to play high school sports, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Less.
SPEAKER_03So we are paying less, but we are paying also to participate in the sports they play in high school.
SPEAKER_01So, so if we're gonna say what are some differences between the US, you know, just to sum this up as we transition to the to to some other comp topics here. But one is we don't have a deep self-funding professional club pyramid in this country, correct, correct? Two is scale and geography, correct. Talk about the distances and the size that we deal with. Three, and you know, you mentioned this before, we have multi-sport culture, and these countries generally do not, but you can measure what is that. Well, what is multi-sport? How is that different? Let's not get into you know specialization or anything like that. Um, but it there's a competition for resources that go into youth sports that are part of that, but it also reflects in the numbers I just read, which is how many players per thousand, you know, how many people are invested and engaged in and participating in soccer in your country, right? Those are the three very, very big differences um between them. But then there's other arguments that have been made of why doesn't the US, first of all, the US does not enforce FIFA training, compensation, and solidarity. Okay. Um, and there is no domestic mechanism that uh pays clubs for developing players that move on. So to back to your point about incentives, there is no incentive being provided to youth clubs or smaller clubs. Let's take it, let's take an amateur youth club and put that in the category of you know developmental feeder yet smaller. There is no incentive currently for that club to have a player who moves on to a professional, uh, let's call it top-tier academy that is free. There is no give back. Okay. Right. There's a couple of arguments for that that have been made over time. One is that antitrust law cre uh would create this, would find this to be an unreasonable restraint of trade. Um, and the reasons for that is that imposing costs on signing new players would restrict players' ability to move freely between clubs. It would reduce the number of clubs that wanted to sign players because of extra cost, and it ultimately would reduce opportunities and suppress compensation for players. So that's the basic antitrust argument. And it's it's basically that if you have to pay in addition to the salary, you have to pay an additional payment to a club that's increasing costs. When there's a higher cost, there's less of those types of signings that reduces opportunity, that reduces mobility for the worker as the player. Now, sometimes you can get around this type of stuff with collective bargaining, which is another legal rabbit hole that I don't really think we want to go down. But that has been the most common reason why that's not uh that it's not enforced here is antitrust issues and and and restrained training. The second one has been about child labor, because obviously in our in our country, there's very, very strict child labor laws. And so when you start treating a minor and the years they spend uh uh in a club as some sort of financial metric with some financial metric, it starts to kind of blur the line of of is this kid an economic asset? And how does that affect whether they're paid or not paid? And that gets a little blurry, and there's going to be people here who tell me that I'm I'm screwing this up a little bit, but you get the point. Those were the two um primary issues. There was actually a case where uh some clubs did try to get training compensation.
SPEAKER_03Um DeAndre Yedlin, right?
SPEAKER_01It was for Yedlin, and it involved um a couple of clubs we all know, um, Crossfire out of Seattle, Texans out of Dallas, and Soccers out of Chicago. Um and that case uh was dismissed because so they sued for internet for solidarity and training compensation for a Dia Andre Yedlin transfer. Um, that case was dismissed on what's called jurisdictional grounds. Um, and you don't need to know what why, except that jurisdictional means it had nothing to do with the actual substantive merits of the case. It had had things to do with the
Why The US Lacks Compensation Systems
SPEAKER_01ability to have authority over the organizations or the author the organizations having connection with the location or the venue where the suit was filed. So that's lawyer speak for basically saying the the court did not rule on the merits and say you did you are owed this or you are not owed this. They just said, Hey, this is not the right place, and you don't have the authority over the defendants to actually get a ruling here. So this is just jurisdiction. Okay. And they went on to the FIFA dispute resolution chamber, brought the same claim. And on the merits, that FIFA dispute resolution chamber said that the clubs were entitled to solidarity payments under FIFA status, and they had a valid claim. But they rejected the claim, and this was when Yadlin went to Tottenham. They rejected the claim because Tottenham had relied on good faith representations by U.S. soccer and MLS that solidarity and training compensation obligations would not apply at the time. And because when they signed them, they did not on good faith and reasonably did not believe they would have to pay anything beyond the transfer fee. The court declined to order it. So, you know, the shortness answer to that is in FIFA, the youth clubs in America won saying you should be paid. Yeah, they lost because they were the clubs had been told that no, that's not forced to. And so, you know, the question is would that case? Be different today. And why is it why are we talking about this case? Is because again, you go all the way back. All the stuff that we went through that funds development is not being done here either at all or at scale. And now we had a legal case where clubs said, wait a minute, we should get some of these resources. And courts said, Nope, not the right place or time and authority. And FIFA said, Yeah, you're right, but nope. Um, they they you know they didn't relied on this and that, and we're not going to go back and make them pay something they didn't expect to pay based on what the Federation and the Pro League said. So I think there's a really good argument that that would not happen if that same case was brought today. But you know, who knows how much money was spent on that case. And then that brings me now, Doug, to your your your leading question of well, what do we want to do about that? And do we have a proposal? And the answer is let's what we're saying in general is that we want an incentive for clubs to invest in lower cost or subsidize development. You want some reward for when clubs do that and players have the ability to move from, if you were in England, you'd say from a category three to a category one club with more resources and more opportunity to grow, uh, from a youth club to an amateur club, whatever, whatever it may uh may be. So this is not that complicated. I'm working on a document. Maybe it's someday we'll share this document. Um, but get your thoughts on this. So we have to think about how does this work in the US, recognizing all the realities that we just talked about. And I think the most important reality we have to recognize is that training compensation and solidarity payment will not replace club fees because 99% of players never get saved.
SPEAKER_03Whatever are particularly with our lacking professional infrastructure, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. So if you turn around and said, well, we need to fund all of soccer through this, it's an impossible mathematical exercise.
SPEAKER_03Right. Because the the top of yeah, the professional clubs, it's like a pinhole.
SPEAKER_01It's not there's not enough professional clubs so that there's any you know, significant number of players that are moving on, therefore the money coming back. And by the way, beyond the small numbers that move on, you know, people love to use the examples of the hundred million dollar fees when a Ronaldo goes from one place to the other place. Most transfer fees are not that. So um you have a small number, you have a small number that are very, very big, but then you also have a time lag, right? So if I started investing in 12-year-olds today and hoped to recoup that investment with professionals down the road, that it's many, many years before I'm gonna get any percentage of my money back.
SPEAKER_03But in theory, in theory, you could have a really talented 12-year-old or 13-year-old that's been in your club for, you know, whatever, five years, six years, whatever the starting number is for these payments. Maybe it's nine years old. So let's say that per that kid's been in your club for four or three years, and then a professional club's youth academy could sign that could bring that player on.
SPEAKER_01Hold on. I mean, because that youth to youth also starts to beg some of these questions. Um, and I think we have to maybe distinguish between youth to youth and youth to pro, at least maybe in step one. But what I want to establish first is that any sort of reward for development has to be in coexistence with uh with club fees. Because if it's not coexistent with club fees, if you're trying to eliminate club fees, nobody's playing soccer anymore because nobody's being paid and no facilities are being developed. Yeah, right. So any of these payments have to first be positioned, number one, is a long-term success reward. Okay, this is an attempt to provide an incentive to invest a little bit more, to subsidize a little bit more. Um it's not gonna replace club registration revenue, but it's hopefully gonna direct some changes and use of proceeds. Um and if we acknowledge that, the second thing I would say is that if we're gonna pay this, and we know that club fees are are gonna exist, so you're gonna have this sort of chicken and egg of the club is charging for development, but then the club might get some money for services provided. All right, you have to acknowledge that there's a reason for that, which is why we covered, but you can also then say, okay, if we're gonna do this, then the funds that are provided must be used in one of a few limited ways. And you can police this with documentation and audit. All right. Number one is in a retained fund for facility development. Okay, okay. So you're gonna get a reward for developing a player that presumably most of the players, even that player, have paid for. That money is earmarked for facility development. Why? Well, having more fields, having lights on fields, right? Adding a video room, adding a training room, things like that. That would does that improve the youth experience, does that improve the quality there? Yeah, of course it does. So not maintenance, facility development. Um, second potential use would be for scholarships to scholarship a current youth player. So it's dollars in, dollars out. You get $20,000 because a kid moved on. You have $20,000 that you have to allocate. That money basically is passed straight through to fund a player or more for a year or multiple years. Um, and that's an immediate pass through in the short term. Long term, um, retaining that retaining that payment to establish an endowment for future scholarships with a clear uh uh, I think, target with upon reaching this amount of money retained, then there will be annual scholarships associated with that endowment. Just like universities have endowments that they give, and then and really that's how you do ongoing scholarships, right? You have to have a base of capital that generates interest from short-term, sorry, interest from conservative investment. And the interest from the endowment is what is given out annually, so that you can continue to give it out every year and it just doesn't go away because you give it all away. Yeah, right. So far, you like you like where I'm going?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the endowment piece I could shoot some holes in because you could, in theory, you're a you're a you're an amateur club or a youth club, it you're you're not you're not moving that many players on to where you can build a war chest to the point where you can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you know what you
A Practical Proposal For Development Rewards
SPEAKER_01could do, Doug, you could say, okay, we're gonna establish an endowment of a hundred grand. You know, we expect a hundred grand is gonna generate five thousand dollars of scholarships every year or some. And we just received 40 grand because you know Johnny was signed, and we're gonna create and set aside this uh account. And if anyone else donates into it, as soon as we get to 100 grand, that that scholarship is going out. Yeah, every year we got five grand. So you could actually set it apart and get maybe a local business, you know, maybe a rich guy in the in the a rich girl uh woman in the community can add to that fund to say, okay, I'll hope you get to a hundred. They do this in private schools all the time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So um, all right.
SPEAKER_03So far, so good, Christian. So far so good.
SPEAKER_01Trigger events, pretty obvious. I I'm trying to limit this to your other point of just youth to pro. So we're taking away youth to youth right now. Um, so if a kid goes from an amateur club to a pro club from at U13 to U14, we're not talking about that yet. But if that kid at some point signs a pro contract, it's covered. Okay, so I think youth to youth is another step down. But trigger payments would be signing a pro contract with a designated pro league. So you go MLS, USL, NWSL, um, anything as a designated pro league. So they sign as a pro. And then a second trigger would be if they move from one pro club to another under the age of 23. So that kind of aligns with the FIFO.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_01Okay. If that happens, a payment is triggered. You know, you can argue about what those payments should be. Um, obviously, it is more expensive to pay for the development of a 16-year-old than it is to pay for the development of a 10-year-old. Um, there's more things that go into it. Um, so I think you would have a different rate from uh depending on the age. So if it if uh let's just say, you know, like you'd have a scale or some of some kind. You could also interestingly, because they do this in England, you could also have a higher payment for a club that meets certain standards. So if you're a club A and and Johnny came and went on and signed in in MLS, you know, and you don't have certain things that are in a uh you don't have a full-time uh methodology director, or you don't have a nutritionist on staff, or you don't train four days a week, or whatever it may be, right? And I'm you putting a bunch of potential standards over here. You collect a base amount. But if you're a club that's invested in all those things to meet those standards, you collect a higher amount.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's fair.
SPEAKER_01Tying together my investment, you know, now could be tied to a increased return on that. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's that's that's interesting. And then you um, you know, in order to in order to get this uh payment, you'd require documentation that the player was a part of your organization. Now we also we've talked in the past about how you know there's kids that are playing all over the place, it's hard to track, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Like if I if I had a kid that came and guest played with me and correct, you know, right.
SPEAKER_01I think we gotta we there's two ways you can handle that. No, number one is some documentation of training and competition schedule for that player, which most clubs have now. I mean, it's built into most of these apps if you want to take attendance or whatever, where you could show rosters by league, by game, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Training schedules, that sort of stuff. So you can you can, to your point, separate the club that's actually been the source of 90% of that kid's training.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and maybe you just have a definition of a home club or something like that, right? Something like that.
SPEAKER_01In theory, that you know, that that sort of administrative role of collecting the documentation and verifying it could be done by US soccer, could be done by the Federation. You know, that's one reason why it'd be great to have one player pass. So there's no question of where that kid was. Better record keeping from the club also supports how much that player was there. Um, I do think, again, if you allocated specific amounts, you make it so you know, because some of these countries they talk about there's negotiated, right? And I don't know what the teeth is to that negotiation. Uh, you know, maybe it's good faith, maybe it's what goes around, comes around, maybe there's some limits in which they can negotiate. But I think having agreed upon sort of protocols that say, hey, this these are the fees that are set by a collective agreement from the pros and maybe to protect from legal challenge, even with collective bargaining with the MLS Player Association or the USL Player Association, where they acknowledge that it is good for the game for investment to be given back to the youth. Therefore, we use because I said earlier, collective bargaining can protect for some of the from some of the antitrust and so I think you can look to that to to to further um protect it from legal challenge. And then you you know you add some you add some kickers. So it's one thing to sign a contract, as we know, it's another thing to actually start to appear. So you add a kicker for the first regular season appearance.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You add a kicker maybe when you hit a couple of milestone milestones. So when that it's that player appears once, there's a small addition. When that player appears 10 times, there's another addition. When they appear 40 times, there's another. So you can cap that. But the point is the more productive that player is as a pro, the more there probably should be kickback. Maybe there's another kicker for a national team cap, right? And then further kickers um on transfers before the age of 23. Uh, and the last thing I'll say on this is if we really wanted to make this in solidarity, instead of having this money come from the individual club who signed the player for the first time and the individual club who maybe transferred the player, you could create some sort of central development fund where everybody kicks into it. Every pro club kicks in a certain amount of every year to the central development fund. The federation kicks in some money to the development fund. So when these players are signed, it is the development fund that pays back. So it becomes a regular stream of revenue that is a normal budget line and it grows this fund. Now, what why are we talking about this so much? Well, if we do all those things, what we will have started to do is create a mechanism that has given money back that doesn't exist today, and a mechanism that goes all the way back to the clubs, and to your point, could be starting at U10, U11, U12, whatever it may be. In the beginning, it's probably a trickle. But let's go back to our endowment. If you get 100,000 here and that endows $5,000 a year in scholarships, and then another club gets that, and another club, and then some philanthropic people want to invest in it and donate to it. You start to build up more and more revenue that can be used to change your the incentives that you've talked about, but that also open access by reducing cost. And you're doing it in a way, especially if you did it with some sort of development fund that everybody's sharing in that everybody in the program uh is sharing in that expense every year. So um I think that also probably helps with some legal challenges. That's a proposal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I and I think I think back about, and
Start Small Build Together And Close
SPEAKER_03again, uh, we talked about the start of the ECNL back in the day, and you and I were part of these, you know, young kind of directors, and the and the club landscape was changing or sorry, the youth landscape was changing in soccer more in from a team-based kind of thought to a club-based, and clubs were becoming more prominent or whatever, but we all sat around the the bar and talked about how bad, you know, everything was or whatever, and nobody ever did anything about it, right? Now, we do have to say the Federation did start the boys DA in 2007. But what happened is we finally just said, if we're gonna do this, how would we do it? And we put put a plan in place, and we've started by trying to sell it to the clubs that we thought, you know, we we wanted to start with, or whatever. That's how that happens. And now obviously we've you know, 17 years later, it is it is what it is uh because of a lot of people. The point I'm trying to make is having if if people think that that the development or youth development is is broken or or in some way needs needs fixed or improved or whatever, then let's come up with these concrete ideas on how to do it and let's start.
SPEAKER_01And let's do amen. Amen to that, Doug. And you know that it's like anything. If you start it, it's not going to be perfect, but you're doing something, and then if you're smart, when it's when you identify problems or unexpected challenges, you pivot, you adjust, and you move forward. And I am not a big believer in over, you know, oh uh over strategizing, over, you know, vision.
SPEAKER_03I know, right, right, right, because you can just be in sort of you don't need a thousand people to agree that something's a good idea.
SPEAKER_01It's a good idea, right? You don't need that, you also don't need to plan for 17 million contingencies and possibilities in a 10-year plan. You need to do the work, and then you say, Okay, this part worked, this part was not how we expected. Fix it, okay. We move on, and before you know it, you have a fund, it's paying back and it's small, but then other people see that and they say, I'll join, I'll be a part, or they say, I have a better idea, and they take the genesis of your idea and they turn it into something better that they do that's even bigger. And so 100%, and I think that's what we're trying to what we're trying to say in this is come with what what do we say in uh in our we have this is a principle, a staff and a leadership principle in our in our in our organization is take your take the monkey with you, yeah. Don't come in and say here's a problem and drop the monkey in somebody else's desk. You need to come in with a solution, and you know that doesn't mean it's got to be perfect, but uh the job job is to help find solutions and and solve problems, not just identify problems. And I think that's what we're trying to do. And I think if you look, and hey, who uh maybe maybe there's some people in our vast audience here who want to reach out to us and talk about how we can implement some of these. We've got these ideas in zone one, which by the way, we could execute on that tomorrow with with the approach. Yeah, the ideas that I think the the clip went out today on on red teaming a YNT program for amateur clubs only to expand access. We can say, you know, we have listen at some point somebody could say, well, you know, ECNL could create a fund like this, and maybe we should. Maybe we should talk about how we would do something like that. Um, because you got to start somewhere, and and I think that's another piece to this proposal that I would say is that the starting point has to be a low enough threshold in terms of these payments that it's not immediately unobtainable or economically. Yeah, it's not crippled, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It doesn't cripple it. Yeah, it doesn't cripple it.
SPEAKER_01You gotta start somewhere, and it's almost a proof of concept. Do it, start it, let it build up. So it's just like you know, and a very, very oversimplifies the power of compound interest. If we start putting some money away now, even if we're not pulling from it right away because no trigger has happened, at least we're starting to grow something, you know, and that it is different than an operational annual call. But yeah, so hopefully these uh these ideas resonate with people. We we welcome the feedback and the the discussion, and and we welcome actually the the possibility, I think, to come. Yeah, with other organizations to build.
SPEAKER_03I think that's the point is collaboration is getting the right people in the conversation. I think we obviously are are part of that, right? Because we're we're involved in such a big youth um organization, whatever. But yeah, I mean, let's let's let's come up with ideas like these that are concrete that help improve it. And even if it's little by little, it's still improvement and it's worth the you know, worth the effort. And we can always decide at some point, hey, this isn't really working like we thought it would. Well, let's pivot to something else, right? Um, so I and I I think there's this thing where we just get caught up in either our own world or some over, to your point, over contingent, you know, plan that tries to account for everybody, uh, every single possibility that, you know, just becomes a little bit uh paralyzing um to keeping us moving forward. And you know, to me, it's like it's about, and I and again, I understand these things are complicated and all that, but it's it's about uh being nimble, making uh decisions that are in the best interests of of where we want to go in the game and and how do we do that, um, that I think it's important that we that we act on rather than yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, reasonable planning, anticipation of challenges, and that that that's smart. That's what business people do. Good business people don't stop and spend an eternity in planning. Um, and that's what this is is business, right? It's investment resources, it's use of resources, and it's it's measuring outcomes. So, you know, I think we'll continue to go down this rabbit hole where we can, yeah. About it, and uh, you know, uh good good conversation. Now I'm gonna go back to thinking. Uh and and but not thinking too much. Gotta ask all my own advice. You're gonna you're gonna go back to golf.
SPEAKER_03No, no, I'm I'm getting on. I am I am gonna play golf this one last time here with my son, and um then uh we are we are headed back to reality uh tomorrow, tomorrow early in the morning. So I will be back in it. I know you also are a huge fan of the mountains, so I know you like to to get out.
SPEAKER_01Should be should be written.
SPEAKER_04That's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_03You know, I've already asked, you know, the brack and brain buster of mountains or beach, and I think you and I have uh, you know, pretty yeah, we go mountains pretty much. I don't know if we've asked Jacob and uh Ryan.
SPEAKER_01Well we'll give them one word answers in roll right one word answers, gentlemen, mountains or beach.
SPEAKER_03What do you got, Jacob Bourne? Mountains or beach?
SPEAKER_01Mountains, okay.
SPEAKER_03Three for three, Ryan.
SPEAKER_01Ryan's a beach guy.
SPEAKER_03I used to be, but I'm more of a mountains person now. Okay, all right. He's got that beard is kind of you know, mountainy beards, flannels, and mountains tend to go. That's that's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_01I want to point out Ryan, that was a 10-word answer.
SPEAKER_03I know. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's an order of magnitude, more words than we asked for.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_03Well, this is a good conversation, and uh, we should, you know, again, we should keep having it and you know, keep pushing pushing this stuff.
SPEAKER_00All right, well, on that, we are out for breaking the line, and we'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to Breaking the Line, the ETNL podcast. And remember, if you have a question that you want answered on Breaking the Line, the ETNL podcast, email us at info at the ectnl.com.