I've been thinking about the outrageous prices being charged in American youth soccer quite a bit lately (as usual) and we already know that Canada has many of the same issues about cost locking out huge swaths of children from playing the game.
It made me wonder if Australia has the same issues... so I hit up one of my Australian followers on Twitter and asked for some information about the costs for youth to play.
@adamOsaussies how much does youth soccer cost in Australia?— Chris Kessell (@THEChrisKessell) August 2, 2018
Is it as prohibitively as expensive for "high level" kids as it is here in the US?
Anything up to $2500/$3000.— ECP (@ECP641) August 2, 2018
Even at community level outside the development pathway, you want to play with mates for fun, up to $1000.
It looks to me like the 3 nations who do soccer... the closed system way. All have the SAME results when it comes to the prohibitive costs for youth soccer.
Now I don't know of any other nations out there where soccer costs this much to play for children. Maybe there are some, but when we are 3 for 3 with closed leagues having the symptom of exorbitant prices for "high level" youth soccer. It is starting to look like we can point to the closed league system being the cause.
Parents, if you are tired of paying thousands of dollars per season for club soccer that may or may not be good... may or may not even give your child a chance to reach the next level... and may or may not even be buying you access to anything beyond playing in the tournaments your D.O.C gets a kick back from... start to stand up for the next generation of players. Call for #ProRelForUSA.
Don't forget that we can not divorce pay-to-play from the professional game.
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