Rumour Round Up

[Soccer_dude]

Soccer mom you seem pretty knowledgable about youth soccer. Where do your kids play youth soccer? How many people per club should be getting compensation in your opinion?

 

[soccer mom]

Soccer mom you seem pretty knowledgable about youth soccer. Where do your kids play youth soccer? How many people per club should be getting compensation in your opinion?

I have been involved in youth soccer my entire life it seems. I am in Coquitlam and have 2 kids that have gone through the system. My last one just graduated.

In my opinion....it depends on the size of the club and many factors. If the operating budget of a club can justify a club head coach and a manager to run the business and admin side of things than that's a good starting point.
The manager/ED/ admin or whatever the title should be responsible in part to grow the clubs operating budget (outside of pulling more money from parents pockets) in order to facilitate better programming and development. For example there are many grants and monies available to non-profit and societies but you need a dedicated accountable person to find them and apply properly. Adding secondary and tertiary programs that are not mandatory to those just wanting to play Fall soccer such as spring soccer, academies, summer camps etc. but are still available to those in the club that want more.

The head coach is responsible to player development. That means creating a program for all the volunteer coaches to be able to fall back on. We all have seen good and bad coaches and know that coaching drives development. A bad coach can ruin a kids experience and they quit.

Once the club develops some traction and the paid peoples salaries are justified. (the club still operates at a zero profit without increasing fees) than you move along and add a admin support, grassroots coach, ref development officer etc etc.
The biggest challenge I have seen is that there are few good soccer admin people available at somewhat reduced salaries and usually good business/ soccer minds have jobs or careers and cant dedicate full time to a soccer club. Find a good one like CFC has and clubs flourish.

Technical directors or head coaches should not be managing soccer clubs!!! Especially if they have incentive based contracts. Recipe for disaster as it pertains to player and club development. As North Delta is experiencing.

 

[Soccer_dude]

Ahh CMF one of the best clubs in BC in my opinion. They do it right by having everything under one umbrella from BCPL to Div 4. Much easier calling up players,scouting to see if a player is ready for the next level, better coach communication etc.

I'm apart of the Van district & it's so poor. Having the fusion apart of another district, then having a district based metro program when the majority of msl teams are club based therefore severely watering down all the gold teams to 12-13 players.

I also think coach education across the board is terrible. How are coaches supposed to stay current with the modern game without proper guidance from a TD or head coach? More money needs to be invested by clubs to send coaches to clinics, courses, work shops etc. But overall, besides the coaching courses like C License, Soccer For Life, which are for coaches to demonstrate their ability & knowledge, where & how are coaches supposed to learn if the club isn't supporting an on going learning program? Without proper coaching, players don't develop & it's as simple as that.

 

[TKBC]

ED or GM whatever the title is. They have a non-executive non-voting employee that manages the club. Executive Director is the title. Same as GM at VFC. Same role just different titles.

Contact Our Club (link to CFC web site with contact. Executive Director is the title in this case. I have seen GM at other clubs.

So if I am reading your post correctly you are concerned that TD's develop football programming? If so, my counter to this is that this is why the executive hire them. I am president of an NFP (not soccer), and while the executive run the NFP from a management perspective, and the executive identify goals for programming etc, we leave it in the hands of the coordinator (TD equivalent) to make it happen (and we also welcome recommendations from the coordinator to guide the executive's goals for programming as they are "boots on the ground" and have a real feel for what the community needs), and report back to the board to ensure they are doing things within NFP compliance etc.

 

[TKBC]

Technical directors or head coaches should not be managing soccer clubs!!! Especially if they have incentive based contracts. Recipe for disaster as it pertains to player and club development. .

Thank you for the post. You and I are on the same page. I agree with many others, CMF has an excellent reputation.

Although this is rumour, I have to ask, how do you know North Delta is experiencing a downturn in player development?

 

[TKBC]

I'm apart of the Van district & it's so poor. Having the fusion apart of another district, then having a district based metro program when the majority of msl teams are club based therefore severely watering down all the gold teams to 12-13 players.

I also think coach education across the board is terrible. How are coaches supposed to stay current with the modern game without proper guidance from a TD or head coach? More money needs to be invested by clubs to send coaches to clinics, courses, work shops etc. But overall, besides the coaching courses like C License, Soccer For Life, which are for coaches to demonstrate their ability & knowledge, where & how are coaches supposed to learn if the club isn't supporting an on going learning program? Without proper coaching, players don't develop & it's as simple as that.

An interesting post. Can I pose a question or two?

Your post suggests that you don't believe Vancouver should have a BCSPL and MSL club? Your example seems to be that they create a watering-down of Gold. IMO you seem to have a clear misunderstanding of what creates a "watering down" effect, with all due respect.

Fusion should exist, as should the district-based MSL club (in fact, Vancouver can surely handle two MSL clubs!). If Gold is "watered down" it's not because of the district-based MSL club, it's because Vancouver has too many gold teams. I'll add that if all the top players are filtering into MSL and BCSPL thus reducing the quality of the Gold teams then that's a good thing!

Coach ed is ... insufficient in BC to put it mildly. TD's and clubs are in a very very tough spot to provide coach ed. How many volunteer coaches are going to attend an on-field session on a rainy Sunday? The responsibility for coach ed has to be directed to BCSA. BCSA hsa to solve the coach ed problem in concert with CSA.

 

[Soccer_dude]

Yeah but across the board, how many Fusion & VFC teams are competitive? Strictly on the boys side because I got no affiliation with the girls side. I think 2/6 were strong at metro & maybe 1 team at Fusion? 2 VFC msl clubs would fail miserably. Every age group would have a VFC B team in last place.

There are plenty of metro caliber players at the gold level that could be playing at the metro level, but coaches at the next level aren't taking the time out to scout these players to maybe invite them to the metro tryout whereas these players then go to the tryout without anybody seeing them & it'd be hard to take a gold player off a small sample size which are the tryouts.

Vancouver has too many club teams for each club to be competitive, but I think what Van United tried to do by getting there club teams permission to join msl was a great idea that got shut down by the vysa. Majority of the VFC is made up of Van U players so why not have Vancouver club teams the option to join msl?

 

[TKBC]

Yeah but across the board, how many Fusion & VFC teams are competitive? Strictly on the boys side because I got no affiliation with the girls side. I think 2/6 were strong at metro & maybe 1 team at Fusion? 2 VFC msl clubs would fail miserably. Every age group would have a VFC B team in last place.

There are plenty of metro caliber players at the gold level that could be playing at the metro level,

Majority of the VFC is made up of Van U players so why not have Vancouver club teams the option to join msl?

You may want reconsider your post. It's.........contradictory. How can you on one hand say that 2 VFC teams would fail miserably, then say there are plenty of MSL-level players at Gold level?

My point is this....how can a district the size of Vancouver not be developing enough players to handle two strong MSL-level teams that can both feed into Fusion? My guess is that it can handle 2 MSL-level teams right now. But if it can't this is a serious indictment of the coaching and development programs provided by the various clubs.

 

[easoccer]

Just wait and see how watered down newton soccer will be with all of these new clubs. I think we're at 5 for this fall? CCB, SFC, PUFC, BCTFC, VUFC.

There is zero looking ahead by the powers that be right now. There are a few strong teams that were assembled under the old system.

Grassroots will suffer for the short term success.

I think its a matter of time before they merge back together.

 

[easoccer]

Its goingvto be interesting to see how North Delta and BCTFC's collaboration in PDS works out.

 

[Soccer_dude]

You may want reconsider your post. It's.........contradictory. How can you on one hand say that 2 VFC teams would fail miserably, then say there are plenty of MSL-level players at Gold level?

My point is this....how can a district the size of Vancouver not be developing enough players to handle two strong MSL-level teams that can both feed into Fusion? My guess is that it can handle 2 MSL-level teams right now. But if it can't this is a serious indictment of the coaching and development programs provided by the various clubs.

Look at the bc coastal cup A & B...how many Vancouver teams make it to the final? Maybe one per year.

Msl players at gold level. Go look at the u14 & 15 boys A cup. See how far the two Van United gold teams got. Surely they could compete yearly at the metro level if there beating metro teams in the A cup when they "should" be in the B cup.

 

[soccer mom]

So if I am reading your post correctly you are concerned that TD's develop football programming? If so, my counter to this is that this is why the executive hire them. I am president of an NFP (not soccer), and while the executive run the NFP from a management perspective, and the executive identify goals for programming etc, we leave it in the hands of the coordinator (TD equivalent) to make it happen (and we also welcome recommendations from the coordinator to guide the executive's goals for programming as they are "boots on the ground" and have a real feel for what the community needs), and report back to the board to ensure they are doing things within NFP compliance etc.

 

[soccer mom]

my concern is not with TD's developing programming, my concern is that they are managing the club. The club GM or ED under the guidance and monitoring of the executive should be managing the club. The day to day stuff including financials, staff, schedules, volunteers disctrict involvement etc. The TD should provide direction to the executive as to the programming he/she wants to implement and the executive should ensure that those programs are in the best interest of player development and not in the best interest of the TD's job security and paycheck.
My belief is many club volunteer executives give too much managing power to technical people that want to do anything but develop a technical program. And the way they provide that power is through passive attention.

 

[soccer mom]

Thank you for the post. You and I are on the same page. I agree with many others, CMF has an excellent reputation.

Although this is rumour, I have to ask, how do you know North Delta is experiencing a downturn in player development?

 

[soccer mom]

North Delta has been the talk of soccer in BC for awhile. Many people are aware that several exec and good volunteers have left the club over some of the shenanigans the last president did that resulted in him being suspended from soccer for a long time. Many have left already for CFC or gone to other sports. I hear nearly 25% have left. The result of those legal issues they had resulted in the gaming grant being pulled combined with lawyer costs and damages they were required to pay further resulted in them not renewing the player development coach because they couldn't afford him. This has further resulted I expect in people leaving and so it goes. The snowball is rolling.
Also I have a friend that is coaching their part time and also coaches in Westminster District. He says they cant even pull together an executive because of the mass exodus.
With North Delta gravitating to BCTFC it again is a desperate attempt by that North Delta TD to secure his future once the money runs out further.
Bigger clubs like VFC are experiencing similar issues but from what I understand the TD there actually has the best interests of development as the drive. Hopefully he gets support of the new GM that has just come in.
BTW - CMF is not a perfect club either but I do believe the exec keeps the paid staff grounded relatively and the direction is consistent with the player development. Its easier though as they have all levels from house to Premier and everything in between. Not much reason to poach or take programming outside the club model. Surrey United same and CFC same. It appears that most of the PL clubs are doing well. chicken or egg. Did they receive franchises because they were doing well or they are doing well since they received franchises? not sure. Thats another thread I suspect.
Kamloops might be the new model to research as I am seeing that club and its successes. I dont have much info though. Maybe a Kamloops person can tell me what they are seeing??

 

[TKBC]

Just wait and see how watered down newton soccer will be with all of these new clubs. I think we're at 5 for this fall? CCB, SFC, PUFC, BCTFC, VUFC.

There is zero looking ahead by the powers that be right now. There are a few strong teams that were assembled under the old system.

Grassroots will suffer for the short term success.

I think its a matter of time before they merge back together.

Those 5 clubs can relatively easily field gold level teams each. The city has about 450,000 people and is growing faster than any other city. CCB (and SFC in my experience) water down the level all by themselves by allowing too many gold-level teams from their own club. In my last u16 season there was 6 teams from CCB in Gold, and in u17 there was 5! 1 of those CCB teams smashed everyone and won the league in u16, but in u17 the CCB teams struggled relatively. Gold should say "max 2 gold teams per club" although TBF the only clubs who would have issue with that rule are CCB it seems.

And yes, I agree they'll surely merge again some point in the future when they realize they are struggling for resources and players, and start to win less medals.

 

[TKBC]

Its goingvto be interesting to see how North Delta and BCTFC's collaboration in PDS works out.

What is PDS?

 

[TKBC]

Look at the bc coastal cup A & B...how many Vancouver teams make it to the final? Maybe one per year.

Msl players at gold level. Go look at the u14 & 15 boys A cup. See how far the two Van United gold teams got. Surely they could compete yearly at the metro level if there beating metro teams in the A cup when they "should" be in the B cup.

It seems you and I are making the same point. I agree the district of Vancouver can handle 2 MSL teams. I don't care if it's VFC x2 or VFC and VUFC.

An interesting point about those VUFC B teams that did well in A cup. At least one of them finished 4th or 5th in their gold league play. Makes me wonder how the teams who finished ahead of them would do in A cup, and how the top B-cup teams in Fraser Valley would do in A cup.

For me, this is an indictment of the MSL teams - there are too many (which contradicts me saying Vancouver can have 2 MSL teams). I've noted before how I believe MSL should be capped at 12 teams. BCSPL franchises, plus 4. Or if the BCSPL team doesn't want to have an MSL team (ie, Fusion) they can hand that off to the district in which they are registered.

 

[TKBC]

my concern is not with TD's developing programming, my concern is that they are managing the club. The club GM or ED under the guidance and monitoring of the executive should be managing the club. The day to day stuff including financials, staff, schedules, volunteers disctrict involvement etc. The TD should provide direction to the executive as to the programming he/she wants to implement and the executive should ensure that those programs are in the best interest of player development and not in the best interest of the TD's job security and paycheck.
My belief is many club volunteer executives give too much managing power to technical people that want to do anything but develop a technical program. And the way they provide that power is through passive attention.

Yes, the executive is responsible for managing the club, and if they are handing that off to a TD and the TD isn't managing it correctly it is the executive that's held liable (the TD would be liable to the board - thus fired most likely if the board gets sanctioned through the Society Act). If the TD is managing the entire club you can quite easily find that there is "conflict of interest" in the management of said club.

 

[easoccer]

What is PDS?

Development. Where they select the better younger players that play other clubs rather than just within their own weekly.

My understanding is they are in partnership and are forming select teams with 6 from each club.