The U.S. Soccer Federation announced Wednesday that it is terminating its development academy, a nationwide youth league encompassing several age groups for both boys and girls, effective immediately.
In a related announcement, MLS said it is forming a new youth competition for the league's academy teams that might also include non-MLS youth teams.
The USSF released a statement in which it said the decision was directly related to the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
"This was an incredibly difficult decision to make, but the extraordinary and unanticipated circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a financial situation that does not allow for the continuation of the Development Academy into the future," the USSF said in a statement. "We know that suddenly discontinuing a program that has been with U.S. Soccer for many years is shocking, but these unprecedented times required taking action now."
The academy was established in 2007 and was intended to address shortcomings in the U.S. player-development system. Among the goals was to take more of a long-term view toward player development and implement a higher practice-to-game ratio.
But while the USSF stressed that the decision was driven by finances -- the costs for the current season were set to run as high as $12 million -- there had been complaints about how the DA was run.
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MLS teams felt that the level of competition provided by non-MLS clubs wasn't high enough, resulting in too many easy games. Todd Durbin, MLS executive vice president for competition and player relations, was diplomatic in his assessment of the level, though he admitted that MLS had been in discussions with the USSF for the past 12 to 18 months about its concerns relating to the DA.
"What was really lacking for us was there was a need for a more robust role of international games, to allow us to really benchmark ourselves and compete against top clubs, both regionally and internationally," Durbin said. "We're in a worldwide market and our players are competing against players from around the world. So that was one area that we had been having conversations in the background about trying to grow."
The non-MLS youth clubs had their own set of complaints, including that the USSF was organizing the competition in a manner that favored MLS academies. One example is when the USSF opted to implement a tiered system at the under-18/19 level that resulted in Crossfire Premier, based in Redmond, Washington, being demoted to a lower tier, despite the club having successfully competed against MLS academy teams.
The DA's ban on players playing for their high school grated, particularly on the girls' side.
Along with strict coaching license requirements that led to well-regarded clubs such as the Dallas Texans and Real Colorado to leave the girls' academy for the Elite Clubs National League, a DA competitor.
One source with knowledge of the federation's thinking said such defections cast doubt on the future of the girls' DA, and given the high-profile equal pay case with players from the U.S. women's national team, proceeding with just a boys' DA was a nonstarter.
North Carolina FC -- which counts USSF CEO Will Wilson, USSF president Cindy Parlow Cone and board member Steve Malik among its past or present leaders -- also had its girls' teams leave for the ECNL.
There were also concerns about the amount of travel costs required to play in the league, with teams often having to fly to away matches.
"I think the DA is absolutely the best league that will happen in this country," Bernie James, the director of Crossfire Premier, said in an interview with ESPN earlier this year. "But I think the people leading it are misguided. There's not enough games, and now our U19 team's closest game is 800 miles away because somehow they put us in a lower tier even though we beat everyone in the upper tier."
Durbin indicated that the details about the new MLS youth league are still being hashed out, but that the league will reach out to non-MLS youth clubs to gauge their interest in participating. The new setup will include league matches as well as regional and national tournaments that will include international clubs.
"We understood and realized that first and foremost, we have approximately 2,500 kids in our system, and we have made a long-term commitment to youth development, and they have made a commitment to us," Durbin said. "It's very important that we continued, and we had no interest in walking away from that.
"We have been and are going to continue to invest a significant amount of money, which is precisely the reason why we're stepping in to ensure that not only do we maintain the level, but layering in more international competition to improve the level."
Many non-MLS youth teams have already begun to make other arrangements; six clubs based in Southern California have moved to join the ECNL.
Durbin admitted there are still plenty of unknowns, which he expected to identify and deal with over time.
"I think you're gonna see a lot of stuff moving at warp speed over the next two weeks," he said.