Saturday, June 13, 2020

We need action not words from the United States Soccer Federation.



I think all of us know that we have strengths and weaknesses..  writing is not one of my strengths... I know that... I have know it for a long time... I just can't NOT write about this.


I saw these three tweets from Miriti Murungi last night and they so perfectly stated what I've felt for a long time.



We have been given nothing but words... we have been given no action attempting to solve the issues that underpin the inequality in the game in the United States.

Back in 2016 there was a great article written about the results of all of these systemic issues that was accurately titled "It's Only Working For the White Kids". Nothing has changed in the last 4 plus years, quite possibly things have gotten worse since then.



The Federation has cared so little about diversity over the last few years that they removed the Diversity Task-force as a standing committee. 


I am going to say this as succinctly as I can...

The soccer system in the United States is not "broken" the system is working exactly as designed. 


By continually saying that it is "broken" it hides the fact that the system from top to bottom has been purposely designed to work the way that it does by the people in power within the game. The rules and regulations that govern every aspect of the game were not random occurrences.  These bylaws and policies were put on paper with the intent of creating the system that we have.

By saying that "soccer is broken" we are stating as fact that "Soccer leadership in the United States designed this system over the last several decades to work in a different way but through things out of our control it ended up giving us these bad results". That just isn't true... the system of how soccer is managed has been designed in the United States to create artificial scarcity from youth soccer through adult soccer along with creating a series of gatekeepers who get to decide who is allowed to participate and in what way.

That is not a design flaw... that is the design. 

Until the United States Soccer Federation decides to change how soccer works in this country nothing is going to change.We can not "change gate keepers" our way out of a purposely exclusionary system.



Having a new person in charge of a league or even the Federation isn't going to magically give access to the game to all the people who want to be participants. It is going to take a redesign of the rules that govern the way the game works in the United States to do that.

Having a SINGLE unified system for soccer in the United States that anyone can join and merit determines your place in is how we fix soccer in the US. If we actually want soccer to be for everyone, we must allow everyone to be able to participate.



Think about the rules that exist in soccer in the United States from youth soccer, through amateur adult soccer, all the way to the top levels of professional soccer. A club has to apply and be accepted (and pay an expansion fee!) or you don't get to participate. Those are the rules... that is how the system was designed.

It was DESIGNED to exclude those that the ones in power did not want to participate. It was DESIGNED to create artificial scarcity. It was DESIGNED to limit competition.

That isn't a broken system.

This is how soccer leadership in the United States WANTED it to work.

If you don't want to see soccer in the United States work this way any more please speak up for systemic change, please speak up for #ProRelForUSA, please speak up for changes in the Professional League Standards, please speak up for changes in how membership is decided in your State Association, in your league, in every league, please speak up for CHANGE. We are who are going to have to fight for change. We can't expect changing a single gatekeeper to "fix" whats "broken".





Monday, May 18, 2020

How does #ProRelForUSA affect the Pay to Play issue in the US?

Quite often you see individuals who can't really see the connection of how the system has created the pay to play issue that we all know exists in the United States in soccer... they also can't see how instituting an open pyramid would address this issue and the lack of scouting that many communities face as well.

I put up a little scenario on Twitter a few days ago that I think we would see play out in almost every community in the United States in a relatively short time.















Changing the incentives that clubs have when it comes to player development and scouting is badly needed. This is something that I think we can all agree on. It isn't revolutionary to think that we need this change...

Creating an Open Pyramid that features #ProRelForUSA immediately allows for this change to happen in every single community in the United States. That is the fix that we need... massive structural change that rewards those who are good at their jobs.

Having a couple free tournaments for only the kids who can participate in the pay to play system that MLS scouts...

That is a mini-band aid on a gunshot wound.

Keep fighting for change! 

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Unique way to structure an open pyramid in the United States

 There are conversations daily about "What would an open pyramid look like?"... here is a great discussion about something that Daniel Workman and myself have talked about quite often.

Would love to hear your thoughts on it.





Friday, December 6, 2019

Illinois Adult Soccer Procurement Policy Submission

Illinois Adult Soccer put forth a policy proposal concerning Procurement of goods and services for the USSF.



Here it is for your review.






Friday, September 6, 2019

GUEST POST: Part 1: Pay to Play by Gabriel Penaloza





As we sometimes do this is a guest post from Gabriel Penaloza aka @FPLLEns on Twitter. He is a great follow on Twitter and has delivered a wonderful article about the game in the United States. Please take the time to read it!


Part I: Pay to Play

We live in a time of increasing nuance in the way we see ourselves and our intersectional identities. With this increased awareness of what makes us different, we have also experienced an increased divide in society. Indeed there are parallels to the division we see in soccer with those we see in the country itself, the social and cultural backdrops are inevitable.

The more we learn about ourselves, the more we realize that loss of identity, which should not be confused with loss of ego, is among the most destructive experiences we can undergo. To address briefly, loss of identity is a diminished capacity for an individual to know oneself. Loss of ego, on the other hand, is the dissolution of the concept that one is the center of existence. The prior is destructive, the latter is used in therapeutic techniques including meditation and treatment for PTSD, but I digress! The point is that cracks in our identity grow with time, like the grout lines of a poorly tiles floor. Our identity is our rudder, our homunculus is our guide.

When we think of ourselves and what identifies us, the factors we will consider range from our physical existence and appearance to our dreams and aspirations. We define ourselves using a variety of cultural identifiers (race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, education, values, political inclinations, socio-economic status, etc). Some of our identifiers are physical; all of them are social and psychological. I include dreams and aspirations because they identify what we see as optimal. They indicate creativity and imagination. Can we truly think of who we fundamentally are without including to what we aspire?

Youth soccer in the United States is either thriving, with more participation in the sport than any other in the country, and a growing professional league, or it is a viper pit of poor coaching, lack of opportunities, and an embarrassing lack of vision from any central leadership that cannot even produce a top men's team to qualify for the World Cup in one of the least competitive regions in the world.

I’d like to suggest that the former is a position of privilege held mostly by people with access to soccer resources and the means by which to procure those resources.

On privilege. From the combination of the latin words privi (private) and lege (law). Pay to play introduces the private law that one must have money in order to qualify to play. The introduction of this inequity strips a future footballer of their footballing identity as soon as the young player begins dreaming about the sport. Consider the cruelty. Once a young child begins dreaming of the sport they love, and they actually REQUEST education so they can study, work hard, and realize their dreams, they are told they must pay. Dreaming, it would seem, is reserved for those that enjoy the benefits of that private law, the exclusive club.

To compare, if all education were run like youth soccer, public schools would be taught by parent volunteers with no expertise in either teaching or the subject matter. The only students that would get accepted to college would be those that were able to pay for a private school education taught by teachers that have two or three other jobs in addition to teaching. Lastly, add a caste system that entrenches power and access in the hands of a very few, therefore limiting any upward mobility for your efforts, and you have the state of youth soccer in the United States. The caste system is, however, for another article.

I want to now turn back to identity by posing a question. If an american soccer player can’t envision themselves as a top-rated player because they have neither the means nor the access required to make that a possibility, are they being robbed of an essential component of their own identity? Moreover, does the collective effect of this incomplete soccer identity of the individual with less means handicap the development of the entire nation’s soccer identity?

It seems no wonder the American “brand” of soccer has been defined as gritty at best, and embarrassing at worst. Most of the time it is just rather confusing with strings of inconsistent tactics, styles of play, and players that don't seem to know the difference between the two. American soccer has looked outwards to white, eurocentric roots to guide it’s own nationalistic brand of soccer. Why does the United States constantly look away from America when searching for it's soccer soul?

There is, however, a European model that has been ignored by U.S. soccer ‘visionaries’; France.

France’s success on the global soccer scene is in large part thanks to its low-income, immigrant population. While the United States struggles with the seemingly obvious immorality of packing refugee children in cages, France (who of course is not without its fair share of equity issues) has seen a policy of inclusion lead to France having the most native players and coaches in the last 4 world cups. A staggering 50 players in the 2018 World Cup were born in France. 21 of those play for the French national team. 58% of French born players in the 2018 World Cup play for other countries. 87% of the French World Cup winning team are immigrants of children of immigrants.

In the 1960s and 1970s France experienced an economic boom thanks to the immigrants who were brought in to rebuild the country after WWII. In 1972 the Institut National du Football (INF) was created and it worked with professional clubs to set up academies to recruit and train local youth. For free.

Here are the results:

Pre-INF:

1962- Failed to qualify for World Cup

1964- Failed to qualify for European Championship

1966- Last in group World Cup

1968- Failed to qualify for European Championship 

1970- Failed to qualify for World Cup

1972- Failed to qualify for European Championship


Since 1998:

2 World Cups and 1 European Championship.

Opening quality soccer education to everyone has brought France to the top of the soccer podium at many different levels. The French women’s team and the U20 men's team also looked to be among the best in the world after their good showings in the Women’s World Cup, the U20 World Cup, not to mention the ongoing U19 Euro team that is in the semi-final.

These players were given a path. They were offered a part of themselves. They repaid that gift by contributing to a unique football identity whose message of inclusion is resonates with every cheer in every game they play.

Few can walk the path from poverty to soccer glory like Pele, Maradona, Zlatan, Weah, Zidane, Ribery, Renard, and Mbappe. The question for Americans is, can ANYONE in this country walk it? Is it even possible?

-Gabriel Penaloza

Los Angeles, CA

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

It is not a movement based on...



Over the last few months many people on Reddit have seen a proliferation of posts espousing racist, anti-Semitic, and other disgusting language directed toward them under the guise of support for #ProRelForUSA. Some of these people have even implied that they are in support of Daniel Workman and my own efforts to create systemic change in American soccer.

Here are just a few small examples... 













Back in 2016 I penned a letter that was signed by 17 people (including Daniel Workman) who are outspoken supporters of the #ProRelForUSA movement.

READ IT HERE

To quote this letter

"It is not a movement based on personal attacks, negativity, degradation, racism, ethnic prejudice and hatred."

That statement holds just as true today as it did these years ago.

I am an easily "Google'able" person... search me and find my work as the Racial Justice Director of the YWCA Charleston... find the Race to End Racism 5k Run Walk... find my articles...  find my work as a 4-H agent for West Virginia State Univ. with inner city children in program after program... find my work in soccer... find our inclusive club... find me calling out US soccer for its lack of diversity and structural sexism...  what you will not find is support for racism, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, etc.

Once again I am going to use my voice, as limited as it is, to stand up and say that these attacks are not welcome.

We do not want your "help" fighting for #ProRelForUSA if this is what your "help" is.