"The term ‘pay-to-play’ essentially refers to the often exorbitant fees required of the parents and carers of young people participating in organized youth sports. In soccer, youth clubs can typically cost families thousands of dollars a year with coaching costs, administration fees and travel expenses. Clubs in California have a sticker price ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 a year.It has long been suggested by those who oppose pay-to-play that the system is too restrictive; that to breed a healthy soccer culture within the US and, ultimately, capture the best talent for the national teams, more children need to have access to the sport.“Unfortunately the model, I believe, is getting worse in soccer than when I played competitive soccer [growing up],” Alex Morgan said in 2019. “It’s a very inexpensive sport and the fact that we’ve made youth soccer a business is, I think, detrimental to the sport.”A study by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association in 2018 found that more than 70% of children within the pay-to-play system came from households who earned more than $50,000 a year; 33% came from households making more than $100,000 a year."
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| Young players have been priced out of expensive private clubs. Photograph: Washington Post/Getty Images |
