![\"Children](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784466613_216_0x0.jpg\")
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Children play soccer at the launch of Australia’s National Football Development Plan in 2007 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
Set your calendars for sometime in late June 2030. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s when the U.S. men will lose in the 2030 World Cup and we\u2019ll have the same conversation we have every four years \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cEND PAY-TO-PLAY! MAKE YOUTH SOCCER FREE LIKE IT IS ELSEWHERE!\u201d<\/p>\n
Noticeably absent \u2014 any recognition that countries with well-established free academies and much stronger soccer histories than the United States, especially Germany and Italy, have fared worse in recent World Cups than the U.S. men. But more perplexingly absent \u2014 any ideas about how to make that happen.<\/p>\n
Also, the people who wax nostalgic about \u201cfree soccer\u201d in other countries tend to be players who joined professional academies at a young age and don\u2019t remember that the vast majority of players do indeed pay. They\u2019re just typically paying what U.S. families pay for \u201crecreational\u201d soccer, not the fees demanded in the USA\u2019s unique \u201ctravel soccer\u201d setup, with professional coaches and expensive tournaments.<\/p>\n
None of which should imply that a youth soccer system that extracts thousands of dollars from beleaguered parents each year \u2014 or excludes those who can\u2019t pay or can\u2019t arrange transportation for their kids \u2014 is the ideal. No one is against the notion of making youth soccer affordable and accessible for all.<\/p>\n
Where To Cut, Where To Spend<\/p>\n
The closest anyone has come to \u201cdefending\u201d the pay-to-play system is Alexi Lalas, the Fox commentator who has morphed over 32 years in the public eye from a guitar-strumming Zen everyman to a human lightning rod. Once a heroic figure in U.S. soccer circles for his roles in the 1994 World Cup, the 1995 Copa America semifinal run and a trailblazing move to Italy\u2019s Serie A, he is now a provocateur who delights in unhorsing crusaders for any pet cause in soccer or politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love if soccer was free to all,\u201d Lalas wrote on X in a post<\/a> that has more than 8.5 million views. \u201cBut who is going to pay for all this free soccer?\u201d<\/p>\n Lalas has been vilified for asking. But it\u2019s not an easy question to answer. Getting at least partway to \u201cfree soccer\u201d depends on a few factors.<\/p>\n 1. Have More Professional Academies<\/p>\n In the \u201crest of the world\u201d (which, in soccer discussions, usually means \u201cWestern Europe\u201d), professional clubs run free academies for those who make the cut. These clubs make money not just through gate receipts and television rights but also by developing and selling players. Major League Soccer does that as well, but having 27 MLS clubs in a country the size of the United States (and three clubs in Canada) doesn\u2019t have the same impact as having more than 90 professional clubs and some semi-professional clubs with academies<\/a> in a country the size of England.<\/p>\n A handful of clubs in the USL have free academies, and as that league continues to grow, the footprint of free academies may grow along with it. On the women\u2019s side, the NWSL has not yet made a major push with academies but may soon be strong enough to do so.<\/p>\n But even in England, the pro academies aren\u2019t paying everyone\u2019s bills. The largest pro clubs generally field only one team per age group and have roughly 180 players, while smaller academies have less than that. <\/p>\n So the number of kids getting \u201cfree soccer\u201d in England is a little over 12,000<\/a>. That\u2019s minuscule compared with the overall demand for youth soccer. A network of The Football Association\u2019s handy club finder<\/a> lists more than 100 clubs within 10 miles of Wembley Stadium, the national team\u2019s home ground. Farther out in England\u2019s less urbanized areas, the Cornwall Youth Football League<\/a> alone boasts 72 clubs and 7,151 players in a county with less than 600,000 people<\/a>. These clubs may benefit from national programs to build facilities and help with general development, but families typically pay around $300 per year \u2014 roughly the same as a recreational program in the United States. <\/p>\n Supplement With U.S. Soccer Federation Programs<\/p>\n As part of Germany\u2019s heralded \u201cDas Reboot,\u201d an overhaul of German soccer<\/a> after a few unacceptable results, the German federation established hundreds of training centers so that no one was more than 25 kilometers away from an opportunity to be identified and developed. The USA is too vast to match that, but grants for a few dozen youth clubs would go a long way.<\/p>\n The federation could also try to revitalize the Olympic Development Program (ODP), which can be a second option for players who aren\u2019t near a pro academy.<\/p>\n Cut The Travel<\/p>\n Youth soccer has long been plagued by in-fighting between an alphabet soup of leagues and organizations. The result is that two comparably skilled teams that are 10 miles apart may never face each other in league play, opting instead to travel 200 miles to play in their leagues of choice. Add to that an emphasis on playing in endless tournaments, and players spend far too much time and money traveling. No one becomes a better soccer player in a car or a plane. <\/p>\n The youth soccer community has made progress<\/a> here with a merger of sorts between US Club Soccer\u2019s National Premier Leagues and US Youth Soccer\u2019s National League. The emphasis on tournaments, though, may be difficult to pull back.<\/p>\n Scout And Respect High School Soccer<\/p>\n A popular complaint in U.S. soccer circles is that a lot of players fall through the cracks of the club system for economic reasons. High school soccer, though, is usually free.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, college coaches and other scouts rarely pay any attention, even though a couple of very successful players have emerged outside the top levels of club soccer. Sofia Huerta grew up in Boise, Idaho, and didn\u2019t have an elite club<\/a> nearby, but she has been a professional for many years and has made 32 appearances for the U.S. women\u2019s team. Andy Najar moved to the USA from Honduras as a teen and made an impression in high school \u2014 fortunately for him, not far away from D.C. United and its academy program.<\/p>\n How many Huertas and Najars are being overlooked because coaches don\u2019t scout high schools like their peers in football and basketball?<\/p>\n Pay The National Teams Less<\/p>\n Lost in the discussion of \u201cequal pay\u201d between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s national teams was the fact that the teams get a far greater share of World Cup prize money than their peers. <\/p>\n The collective bargaining agreements that brought an end to the women\u2019s team\u2019s pay dispute call for prize money to be split between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams no matter which teams earned it. The bonus split is a clever way of dealing with the fact that FIFA awards much more money to men\u2019s World Cup teams than they do to women\u2019s teams. This year, the U.S. men earned $16 million for reaching the round of 16. U.S. Soccer takes 20%, and the national teams get the other 80%, or $6.4 million per team<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other federations take a far greater share. Players on the French national team typically get 30%<\/a> of their country\u2019s prize money, with the rest going to the federation, and that\u2019s actually a higher percentage than many other teams\u2019 players get.<\/p>\n In other words \u2014 while U.S. Soccer takes its prize money and pays the current players (most of whom are paid very well by their professional clubs) a handsome sum, other federations put that money back into their development programs so they can come back and beat everyone again. <\/p>\n