Post by Admin on Oct 27, 2017 2:38:33 GMT
Insightful yet stinging article from the economist following the U.S. disqualification. Many of these issues also apply in Canada.
If you don't care to read it all, some of the critical excerpts below
"Yet although the foundation of interest in the sport now appears solid, producing world-class talent requires infrastructure for player development as well. And in America, that remains woefully shaky. The countries that compete for World Cup championships all have methods of identifying promising youngsters early, and coaching and training them intensively by the time they are teenagers. Following a poor performance at the 2000 European championships, Germany set up a comprehensive scouting and development system to ensure that no prospects were missed or unnurtured. Spain countered with a “fidelity strategy”, which sought to promote the use of homegrown players by creating a cohesive academy system across the country. The Dutch may have missed qualification for Russia, but they came close in a much tougher confederation despite a population of only 17m largely because of their youth programme.
America has much to learn from these countries. Even at the earliest ages, it lets many potential stars fall by the wayside. Whereas college basketball coaches scour playgrounds and high school gyms looking for the next Michael Jordan, youth football in America operates on a “pay-to-play” system, in which the sport is treated as a mere extracurricular activity that well-off parents can choose to invest in for their children. As a result, boys whose parents cannot afford expensive club dues, and often related travel costs, are frozen out of the player-development pipeline. This burden falls disproportionately on Latinos, who are both likelier than other Americans to grow up in football-loving families and likelier to be poor.
The problems arguably get worse in the teenage years. At ages when European prospects are already playing full-time for professional clubs, America relies on high schools and colleges to develop talent. This works fine for sports like basketball and American football, in which university teams are essentially run as big entertainment businesses with an unpaid work force. But in football, college athletes play just a three-month season, possibly tacking on a 14-or-so match schedule in an American summer league. “Student-athletes” are not allowed to receive pay for playing football—or even to play alongside professionals in a summer league—without relinquishing their eligibility to play in the college game, the largest and most comprehensive development system in the country. And amateurism is hard to reconcile with the demands of training to compete with the world’s best.
America’s systemic enforced amateurism also has a hidden cost. Lower-division clubs in Europe, as well as top-tier teams in Latin America and Africa, stay in business by discovering young talent and then selling it on to rich European clubs. As a result, they often prioritise the development of prized prospects over the imperative to win matches. In contrast, colleges want to win at all costs, and would be much less willing to, say, play a green youngster in a high-pressure game in order to give him experience.
Finally, the business model of the highest level of football in America was designed largely to ensure the financial security of club owners rather than to make the country a magnet for elite talent. MLS has a salary cap and centralises player contracts, depressing player wages. And without the promotion-and-relegation system that prevails everywhere else, there is no market mechanism to punish clubs who refuse to pay up for players. A club looking to join MLS has a better chance of acceptance if it shows it can probably extort a cushy stadium subsidy from its hometown than if it spends years developing sustained footballing success or a passionate fan base."
If you don't care to read it all, some of the critical excerpts below
"Yet although the foundation of interest in the sport now appears solid, producing world-class talent requires infrastructure for player development as well. And in America, that remains woefully shaky. The countries that compete for World Cup championships all have methods of identifying promising youngsters early, and coaching and training them intensively by the time they are teenagers. Following a poor performance at the 2000 European championships, Germany set up a comprehensive scouting and development system to ensure that no prospects were missed or unnurtured. Spain countered with a “fidelity strategy”, which sought to promote the use of homegrown players by creating a cohesive academy system across the country. The Dutch may have missed qualification for Russia, but they came close in a much tougher confederation despite a population of only 17m largely because of their youth programme.
America has much to learn from these countries. Even at the earliest ages, it lets many potential stars fall by the wayside. Whereas college basketball coaches scour playgrounds and high school gyms looking for the next Michael Jordan, youth football in America operates on a “pay-to-play” system, in which the sport is treated as a mere extracurricular activity that well-off parents can choose to invest in for their children. As a result, boys whose parents cannot afford expensive club dues, and often related travel costs, are frozen out of the player-development pipeline. This burden falls disproportionately on Latinos, who are both likelier than other Americans to grow up in football-loving families and likelier to be poor.
The problems arguably get worse in the teenage years. At ages when European prospects are already playing full-time for professional clubs, America relies on high schools and colleges to develop talent. This works fine for sports like basketball and American football, in which university teams are essentially run as big entertainment businesses with an unpaid work force. But in football, college athletes play just a three-month season, possibly tacking on a 14-or-so match schedule in an American summer league. “Student-athletes” are not allowed to receive pay for playing football—or even to play alongside professionals in a summer league—without relinquishing their eligibility to play in the college game, the largest and most comprehensive development system in the country. And amateurism is hard to reconcile with the demands of training to compete with the world’s best.
America’s systemic enforced amateurism also has a hidden cost. Lower-division clubs in Europe, as well as top-tier teams in Latin America and Africa, stay in business by discovering young talent and then selling it on to rich European clubs. As a result, they often prioritise the development of prized prospects over the imperative to win matches. In contrast, colleges want to win at all costs, and would be much less willing to, say, play a green youngster in a high-pressure game in order to give him experience.
Finally, the business model of the highest level of football in America was designed largely to ensure the financial security of club owners rather than to make the country a magnet for elite talent. MLS has a salary cap and centralises player contracts, depressing player wages. And without the promotion-and-relegation system that prevails everywhere else, there is no market mechanism to punish clubs who refuse to pay up for players. A club looking to join MLS has a better chance of acceptance if it shows it can probably extort a cushy stadium subsidy from its hometown than if it spends years developing sustained footballing success or a passionate fan base."