A movie called The Money Trap, back in the 1960s, starring Glen Ford and Elke Sommer, had a plot that anyone who ever fantasized of finding a big bag of cash could relate to.
The movie premise involved two cops with financial issues who broke up a robbery, and to keep it short, decided to grab the $500,000 that was supposedly robbed. Mayhem ensued.
Big Island parents of youthful soccer players know all about being in a money trap, but given inflation, even the movie’s cool half a million wouldn’t solve the problem.
Given the structure for development in our country, soccer has become one of the most expensive athletic paths for young people in America, and it is absolutely a bigger issue here than it is most anywhere else.
It helps explain, at least in part, why the United States struggles so much in soccer, but examples like failing to send a national team to the World Cup — an inability to field one of the world’s 32 best teams — should not seem a long leap from the concept of the soccer money trap.
A couple weeks ago, former U.S. women’s national team goalie Hope Solo said the cost of youth soccer has increased so much that if she were starting today, she would not be able to play. She did come from a poor family with numerous issues, but Solo started in a time where dads and moms coached and as you grew up, if you displayed real talent, you could get on a good club team and you might get some college interest.
She did that and it worked, but these days we would have never known her talent was available.
We Americanized soccer — not that we had much choice — and the result has left the country deficient internationally and has caused our parents to foot the bills parents in other countries don’t have. First, we put it in the same system we use for all our other sports, with high school varsity success and a college scholarship an indication of success.
That’s not how it works around the world in countries where soccer is important and accomplished at an international level. In England, and throughout Europe and most of the rest of the world, local club teams were organized around the start of the 20th century, give or take. They played other club teams in their areas and then formed different associations and played for cups at the end. The clubs used their profits to organize club teams from the youth level on up, so if your kids play in those countries, they play essentially for free and get very high level coaching from professionals who know how to groom talent.
The clubs use their profits to pay for all their various age group teams, and coaching that young talent becomes extremely important when that player moves on professionally.
Important? Last week, as an example, Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the world’s greatest player, moved, at 33, from Real Madrid to Juventus after the Italian club paid Real Madrid a transfer fee of $117.5 million. On top of that, Ronaldo will be paid $35 million year for the next four seasons.
We don’t have “transfer fees” here, we have individual contracts and free agents. When LeBron James leaves Cleveland for another team, the new team doesn’t pay a transfer fee.
But that $117.5 million will go a long way to help Juventus invigorate its club teams with more coaches, trainers, improved facilities, all of it. The soccer issue in our country is that we have none of that.
Here, the parents pay the price, at least for as long as they can. Since Hope Solo played youth soccer, it has shifted to a more institutionalized club team sport. Good players sign up for high school teams for the fun of it, not to play a higher level of competition. In any city, including Hilo, the best teams are the club teams, and club teams have gotten expensive.
Here, two of the major clubs are Rush and Surf, each of them is connected, through their organization, to mainland teams involved in large tournaments that attract college recruiters eager to sign talented players.
For a perspective on the skyrocketing costs of youth soccer here, I talked last week with Trey Scharlin, who grew up on Oahu, but has experience with the the Big Island clubs and now runs an expansive soccer center in Los Angeles.
“Up until age 14 when some begin to split off and go other ways, soccer is the No. 1 youth sport in terms of participation,” Scharlin said, “and it would be interesting to see what cost has to do with that, I don’t know, but I do know it’s getting more expensive ever year and it isn’t going to go down.”
Scharlin remembers playing youth soccer on city fields, free of charge, but in Southern California these days, “you can pay $100 an hour for a field,” he said. “All the clubs have paid coaches, of course, but when you throw in costs to join the club, travel, the clinics and things, it gets expensive, fast.”
It’s not uncommon on the Big Island to hear stories of families flying 12-year-olds to Oahu for tournaments and clinics where more recruiters will be in attendance, taking their notes, but Scharlin knows that’s only the start.
“I know a family (in Los Angeles) who moved here from Oahu so their 15-year-old son could play for this particular club soccer team,” Scharlin said, “and that’s not really as unusual as you might think.”
Every knowledgable soccer insider you can find will tell you the best thing this country could do to improve the level of soccer would be to have all the highest level coaches working with keiki, maybe 6 years-old and up, the age groups that were mostly coached by someone’s mom or dad not so long ago.
It’s hard to make a living coaching 8-year-olds, and we don’t have the sensible system similar to England’s, which is replicated around the world, so our level of soccer must also rely on our club teams, but here, the parents, not the clubs, foot the bill.
Big Island teams face an additional burden of a lack of suitable fields to stage a proper tournament that could attract high-powered mainland teams and draw college recruiters. The ideal spot would be close to downtown, with lights, spectator facilities and parking.
One good field with turf might work as a hub with teams playing from sunrise to well past sunset, using other area fields for support, but other fields would have to be upgraded and maintained to have any opportunity to attract 16 or more teams to a weekend tournament that would help fill hotels and keep restaurants busy.
For now, though, even that “one good field” idea is a Big Island pipe dream. All parents here have is a warning that their keiki soccer kids are facing enormous odds of advancement and pursuing their sport will create major financial costs for mom and dad.
If the sport has a chance to grow here, it will require help from everyone in the community to keep our best players at home more often for high level competition.
Comments? Questions? Whistleblower alerts? Contact Bart at barttribuneherald@gmail.com
