What are clubs saying about Covid and next season?

I am definitely interested and wondering that myself. I think many parents at my club are hesitant to sign up and pay a bunch of money for next season when we did not get any money back for the remainder of this season. It is understandable that they still wanted to support the coaching staff and have other expenses that had to be paid for them to survive. But without the guarantee of a refund if the fall season gets cancelled, parents are going to be hesitant to want to invest the money.

crickets

I think US Club has the "Tentative COVID-19 Mandate Lifted" date as May 18, that's why we are hearing that same date as a "league start up date".

It is tentative bc they rightly adjust plans based on new info. So far:

3/17- suspended until 4/12
3/30- extended until 4/30
4/27- extended until 5/18

I expect we'll hear about another suspension by next week but there is also a chance that US Club returns decision making to the individual leagues if their lawyers/branding dept/insurance company feels they bear no risk(or can mitigate the risk) in a worst case scenario of deaths/hospitalizations attributable to league functions.

Excellent point! Even if clubs are ready for tryouts or games, do they have fields to use !

If that’ true then there’s goes UFA’s chance at hosting tryouts on time.

I don’t post often, only when I feel compelled to help shed light on a topic. Some clubs are using the arbitrary US soccer date or GaSoccer date, allowing members to believe that there is hope of starting back midMay bc that fits the club narrative that they can fit “something” in so they don’t have to provide a refund for spring. The local government will determine when the fields will open and each parent will determine when his/her child will return. Not to mention when fields do open, under what conditions and guidelines, limited player numbers per field? No parents out of their cars? No pennies? Coaches/player/parents 6ft social distancing? Covid-19 legal waiver?

Parents need to be asking more questions of the club leadership if they aren’t hearing what they need to hear to commit to a 2020/2021 season. Most clubs are procrastinating, hoping that someone else from higher up will make the decision for them, which is a bit ironic since the big clubs are trying to leave GASoccer in the dust, but first, GASoccer please make these difficult decisions for our members.

IF, and this is a big if, players can return in mid May (some counties and cities have already confirmed they will NOT be opening fields until June 1st at the earliest), what is your club’s plan for tryouts. You know tryouts means registration fees and more revenue to keep these clubs going and paying their coaches and employees, BUT will the Ga parents be ready to send their kids out at the end of May/early June and has your club asked when members will be ready and what steps will your club be taking to mitigate risk for its members. Members have far more power then you give yourselves credit for, without members these clubs don’t exist and can’t pay those lofty DOC salaries. Ask questions now, don’t assume the board or EDOC will “let you know” or “get back to you”. In most cases, your child’s coach is just a messenger and doesn’t have all the information, so you need to go to the source. If you don’t know what your club did with your spring fees, then why would you have any confidence in that club to manage your fees for the 20/21 year? The reason for crickets on this topic, is bc most people in places of leadership are waiting for true leaders to make a decision for them. The shut down will reveal which clubs are here for the kids/families/members and which ones are just out to fill their pockets.

While writing my post someone mentioned UFA and tryout dates... you’d think that the big clubs (ECNL clubs/SCCL) would get their directors together and find out when they could all have tryouts at the same time so things would be relatively fair, or decide together on a collective plan for GA players to return to play... it’s probably bc these clubs that wanted to pull away from GASoccer aren’t doing it bc they wanted control and power, but just more $$$. So give us your money, but we will let someone else make the tough decisions bc we don’t know what to do... and while others are making the decisions about your kids return to play timeline, I bet most of the DOCs are still getting their pay checks.

Mic drop.

UFA just announced try-outs for end of May/early June. No word on any additional precautions they are planning to take to ensure safety of participants. I'm sure many other clubs are doing the same.

I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on the board... are you OK with this? will you be sending your child to try-outs later this month? Yes/No/Perhaps/only if I see the following things done...

Until reliable antibody testing is done across vast swaths of the population, we won't know where we are with the pandemic.

However, personally I'm not worried about my kid participating in an outdoor, relatively distanced environment. The risk to children/teens is very, very low, and generally the risk of transmission of the virus from kids to adults SEEMS to be lower than adults-to-adults.

We are fine with tryouts late May/early June.  If our club offered training tonight we would be there.

UFA announcing tryouts at this time joins with what I have heard from both GSA & AFU.  The biggest question I have for these clubs is, where will tryouts be held?  I don't believe any of those clubs will have sufficient field access to hold traditional tryouts at the time they are hoping for.

*yells intimidatingly* “I sure hope you lose control of that ball!”

Hilarious because it is true.

One thing I heard is that they won't do regular tryouts but will instead do small numbers of kids doing technical skills at the young age groups in combination with rankings from this year and coach input. This is reasonable at the academy ages but not really appropriate for older ages. However we know many clubs/coaches build their teams ahead of time. This would be a good time to be honest with the players and tell them where they stand ahead of time.

Following the thread, but so glad we are done with this part of our lives. Just praying that colleges will be open come August so my girls can go live their lives. 

Good luck to everyone and I hope all are happy and safe with whatever decisions are made.

Considering the last 3 tryouts I’ve seen at 2 different clubs consisted of 80% scrimmaging, that might be difficult