Children wait to play football in the minor leagues of Newell’s Old Boys, where Argentine football star Lionel Messi used to play in Rosario, Argentina, in 2018.
ROSARIO, Argentina — Newell’s Old Boys is one of Rosario’s most popular soccer clubs and operates one of Argentina’s most successful youth academies. Each week, about 700 children between the ages of 4 and 12 train at the club’s facilities in the city center, where black-and-red murals celebrate famous alumni such as Lionel Messi.
The most promising players at Newell’s “baby football” academy receive scholarships and train for free. Other families pay about $25 a month for two weekly training sessions led mostly by former professional players. On weekends, the children compete against teams from across Rosario.
“Here you get good coaching,” says Carlos Gil, a fencing contractor whose eight-year-old son trains at Newell’s each week.
“You have the chance that your child can develop his skills,” Gil says. He shakes his head and chuckles after learning that parents in the United States pay between $1,000 and $3,000 a year for comparable youth soccer instruction.
“If you did that here, almost nobody could play,” he said of the fees charged by U.S. youth soccer clubs. Gil also says that if Argentine clubs charged thousands of dollars annually for youth training, the country’s status as a global soccer powerhouse could be threatened.
“Our best players tend to come from low income backgrounds,” Gil said. “Where would they train?”
Argentina’s affordable youth soccer model
With the World Cup still fresh in the minds of many Americans, debate has returned online and on television over how to make youth soccer more affordable in the United States. Critics of the U.S. pay-to-play model question whether high costs are preventing the country from reaching its full potential, particularly in men’s soccer.
Argentina has kept youth soccer relatively affordable while producing a steady stream of world-class players. Some coaches say the country’s club structure could offer lessons for the United States.
Newell’s — where Messi played from ages 6 to 13 — is one of dozens of Argentine clubs that subsidize youth training. The club does not depend on tuition payments or donations from local businesses for its survival. Its professional team competes in Argentina’s top division and earns revenue from ticket sales and broadcasting rights.
A soccer field used by the Newell’s Old Boys youth team in Rosario, Argentina.
Newell’s also earns significant sums when its best young players transfer to other clubs in Argentina or abroad.
“The kids that we are training today are what sustains this institution,” said Gustavo Tognarelli, Newell’s head of youth development.
In the United States, youth clubs have largely been excluded from transfer payments. Major League Soccer, the country’s top professional league, does not require its teams to share transfer fees with youth clubs that developed elite players.
In Europe and South America, youth clubs regularly receive a portion of a professional player’s transfer fee when they trained that player between the ages of 12 and 23. These payments are known as training compensation and solidarity payments.
Major League Soccer has been slow to adopt the system, partly because of concerns that it could violate U.S. laws. Many coaches argue that the lack of training compensation leaves American youth clubs at a disadvantage.
“In the United States, if you train a player and they go to a better situation or a bigger club, you get nothing for that,” said Rory O’Neill, a coach of an under-13 team in Pennsylvania. O’Neill also runs a YouTube channel about coaching tactics and the state of U.S. soccer.
O’Neill said U.S. youth clubs have limited sources of revenue and rely largely on payments from parents to cover their expenses. He believes the clubs could improve their finances if the U.S. soccer system moved toward what is known as an open ecosystem.
Could promotion and relegation help U.S. academies?
Only 30 teams can currently compete in MLS because it is a closed league that charges hundreds of millions of dollars for entry. In an open system, the weakest teams are relegated to lower divisions while successful teams are promoted to the top flight.
O’Neill says promotion and relegation would give hundreds of clubs across the country a stronger incentive to invest in youth academies. Reaching the top division and accessing the financial rewards that come with it would become a realistic possibility for more teams.
“You would have almost any millionaire start investing in clubs,” O’Neill said.
Filippo Silva, a business owner and coach in Orlando, agrees.
“If we do have an open system and it’s merit-based, I do think you’re going to open the doors for more small investors trying to get things done,” he said. “More people would be willing to put more money into soccer if there was something you could get out of it.”
In Argentina, where soccer has long operated with promotion and relegation, thousands of clubs have a chance to reach the country’s top division. Although many will never get there, clubs continue to invest in youth development in the hope of climbing the football pyramid or earning money from player transfers and solidarity payments.
Newell’s invests in players’ futures
Newell’s funds the training and education of about 400 players between the ages of 12 and 18. They practice as many as six times a week.
Some younger children who train twice a week receive scholarships, including Dastan Gil, Carlos Gil’s eight-year-old son.
Driving his son to practice each week is a challenge for Gil. He lives in a small town 120 miles from Rosario, where he repairs fences for large farms and cattle ranches.
But although being a soccer parent can be difficult, Newell’s scholarships and low fees help ease the burden.
“In Argentina, we might not have so much money,” Gil says. “But in some areas we have better quality of life.”
U.S. Soccer is closing in on a takeover of U.S. Youth Soccer, a move that could reshape youth soccer governance across the United States. Members of USYS, the country’s largest youth sports organization, are expected to approve a bylaw amendment at a meeting Saturday in Dallas that would transfer control to the U.S. Soccer Federation.
About a dozen people familiar with the matter, including several voting members, told The Athletic they expect the amendment to pass comfortably. The change would allow U.S. Soccer to fully absorb USYS by 2028 as part of a years-long effort to create a more coherent and less fragmented youth soccer system.
The takeover would not eliminate the “pay-to-play” model or immediately make soccer significantly cheaper, several sources cautioned. However, supporters believe it could strengthen grassroots soccer and give U.S. Soccer more authority to pursue broader reforms. Most sources spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the process publicly.
USYS is a 52-year-old national association with 2.5 million registered players and 54 state associations. Together, those organizations oversee large parts of recreational youth soccer nationwide. Although USYS-affiliated clubs, leagues and programs have lost hundreds of thousands of teenagers to US Club Soccer and competitive national leagues over the past two decades, they remain an important entry point for many young players.
The state associations, which administer much of USYS programming, will vote Saturday on a plan that would eventually dissolve the national association and establish a direct relationship with U.S. Soccer. The federation has told them it intends to empower them as “local arms” of a coordinated strategy, but the details of that strategy and the “future state” of youth soccer remain unclear.
That makes the vote consequential, even though its long-term impact is still uncertain.
Why is U.S. Soccer taking over USYS?
For most of its 113-year history, the U.S. Soccer Federation paid limited attention to youth soccer. Separate organizations, including USYS, emerged in the 1960s and 1970s to govern children’s clubs and leagues. The federation largely allowed those groups to operate independently while permitting entrepreneurial competitors to enter the market.
The result was a “fractured” or “fragmented” youth soccer landscape that can confuse parents, increase costs, complicate player development and limit the sport’s growth.
U.S. Soccer began pursuing change several years ago. In 2023, it launched an “ecosystem review,” added staff to build relationships with youth soccer leaders and spent months assessing how the system functions.
The review identified state associations as important, well-intentioned organizations that provide localized services, but also highlighted two central problems.
First, the state associations do not represent every part of youth soccer. Their affiliation with USYS placed them in competition with US Club and other organizations. Because player registration fees are central to their business models, they often devoted resources to keeping players within the USYS system rather than working with local governments to build fields or expand programming in underserved communities.
Second, some state associations were inefficient and financially troubled.
U.S. Soccer concluded that eliminating USYS and establishing a direct connection with the state associations could address both issues. The associations would be repurposed, and potentially restructured, as local implementers of U.S. Soccer’s broader plan to grow the game. Federation control could also enable a centralized registration system, giving U.S. Soccer greater access to millions of boys and girls who play soccer.
Will the takeover make youth soccer less expensive?
The new structure could make grassroots soccer somewhat more accessible if U.S. Soccer provides meaningful support to the state associations. Streamlined administration could lower costs or help coordinate more affordable programming. Direct financial support, potentially from sponsors and philanthropists able to fund programs across all 50 states, could also help.
But the most significant financial burden typically arrives during the pre-teen and teenage years, and the USYS takeover is unlikely to make competitive soccer much more affordable for those families.
At the “competitive” and “pre-professional” levels, as U.S. Soccer defines them, a complex network of clubs and leagues charges families thousands of dollars for coaching and exposure. Players are often required to drive or fly past similarly skilled athletes for tournaments, exclusive “showcase” events and even regular league games because the other players belong to a rival league or organization.
That travel adds thousands of dollars and dozens or hundreds of hours to the overall cost. Reducing those expenses and aligning the broader system will require U.S. Soccer to win support from organizations such as the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL), Girls Academy (GA) and Major League Soccer (MLS), which operates MLS Next, the leading academy circuit for teenage boys.
MLS will play a key role in the future of youth soccer in the U.S. (Jason Mowry/Getty Images)
What is U.S. Soccer’s broader youth soccer plan?
Multiple sources said the USYS takeover is only one part of U.S. Soccer’s larger effort to redesign competitive youth soccer nationwide. The federation wants “a more connected system that is easier to navigate, more accessible, and better aligned around the needs of players and participants.”
How to achieve that goal remains unresolved.
The ideal model would be a single, clearly defined pyramid that moves the most talented players toward the highest levels. That outcome may be unrealistic in the United States’ free-market environment. Even if U.S. Soccer absorbed existing leagues and organizations, new competitors could emerge. Efforts to block them could lead to costly legal disputes.
A more realistic model would be a tiered system involving multiple organizations and leagues, with standards for each level. Clubs and leagues would need to meet those standards to retain a desirable designation. The designations could reduce confusion for parents, while the standards could help ensure consistent programming and player environments.
The challenge will be persuading organizations such as ECNL and GA to agree on those standards. When U.S. Soccer introduced standards through its Development Academy during the last decade, many clubs resisted.
A redesigned system could also include more inter-league matches or merged competitions, reducing travel. Speaking to The Athletic in July, U.S. Soccer chief operating officer Dan Helfrich envisioned a future in which “the structure of competitive soccer between the ages of 11 and 15 has a different, more joined-up, more local and regional organization to it.”
Travel would remain necessary at the highest level because “best against best” is central to elite player development. Below that level, however, cooperation and a more practical structure could significantly reduce unnecessary travel.
U.S. Soccer COO Dan Helfrich at April’s SheBelieves Summit in Seattle, Washington (Ali Gradischer/USSF/Getty Images)
U.S. Soccer is negotiating with organizations including US Club, which sanctions ECNL and other regional and national leagues. Those groups have been cautious about publicly outlining their plans while the overall direction remains unsettled.
In a document published in early June, U.S. Soccer said it would release “a broader vision for the future of the game … later this summer.” Helfrich said in mid-July that a draft would be circulated for feedback and ultimately published “in the next few months.” Many people involved in the process hope the fall will bring greater clarity.
Will U.S. Soccer take over other youth soccer organizations?
Possibly, but no such outcome is certain.
The federation is in discussions with US Club, the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) and other youth soccer groups. Each organization serves a different purpose and has a different structure, so the rationale and process for deeper U.S. Soccer control would vary.
People familiar with the discussions generally expect U.S. Soccer to strengthen its relationships with some of those organizations over the next year. The federation is already working closely with US Club under a January agreement that saw U.S. Soccer “enter into a new strategic partnership” with the for-profit company managing US Club’s business.
US Club’s board and members, however, retain full decision-making authority and control over the organization’s strategic direction.
What will happen to U.S. Youth Soccer and its competitions?
The revised bylaw amendment would make U.S. Soccer the sole voting member of USYS. Over the following two years, USYS would gradually dissolve into the federation.
USYS holds roughly $15 million in reserves. People familiar with the matter said complicated legal provisions govern those funds, but much or all of the money is expected to be distributed eventually to the state associations.
U.S. Soccer would then direct the state associations and assume control of USYS competitions, including the President’s Cup, a July national championship, and the Olympic Development Program (ODP).
ODP was once a premier pathway to college and professional soccer, but its relevance has declined during the 21st century as academies and national leagues expanded. U.S. Soccer could reinvent it as a local talent-identification network or take it in another direction.
The program and other competitions are likely to change, but the details have not been determined.
What will happen to the state associations?
The changes will not happen immediately. Through the fall and likely beyond, state associations will continue registering players, safeguarding participants, assigning referees and coordinating local programs.
Over time, after further discussions with U.S. Soccer, they are expected to evolve and possibly consolidate. There are currently 54 state associations, including two each in California, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania. Multiple people involved in the discussions said there will likely be fewer in the near future.
Staffing structures will change, and some services could be managed regionally or nationally. Local “boots on the ground” will remain important, but the exact changes will differ by state because each association has its own model and needs.
It has not yet been decided whether the associations will remain separate nonprofit organizations or become local U.S. Soccer offices.
Will the state associations vote for the changes?
The uncertainty is the most worrying aspect of the proposal for some state leaders. Some are stressed and anxious because they do not fully understand what they are being asked to approve. Others remain skeptical of U.S. Soccer, its discussions with the USYS board and its relationship with US Club. Some also fear they could lose their jobs if the new structure takes shape.
Even so, there is strong confidence that enough state associations will support the amendment Saturday for two primary reasons.
First, U.S. Soccer could continue pursuing reform even if the amendment fails. That outcome would create a difficult process: supportive state associations might effectively have to leave USYS and work directly with U.S. Soccer. But many involved believe change is inevitable.
“U.S. Soccer is the train, and it is pulling out of the station,” Jim Walker, the executive director of Georgia Soccer, told The Athletic. “And we can either get on board the train, or when the train leaves we’re left at the platform; and when the train gets to the next station, somebody else is gonna get on. I would much rather be a part of the solution to the obstacles that occur than be left standing on the platform and watching somebody else be part of the solution.”
Second, U.S. Soccer has built trust during the years-long process by listening to and collaborating with state leaders.
That has created a willingness among many participants to move forward despite the unanswered questions.
“It’s putting trust in U.S. Soccer,” Evan Dabby, the CEO of New Jersey Youth Soccer, told The Athletic, “to do what’s right to grow the game.”
