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[FanInRed]

We can agree to disagree on how we see things, without accusing each other of "bashing", I think.

Fair enough.  I just seems GRFC was everyone's favorite club when showing the big bad boys they could compete with them.  Then... poof... they get an invite, join, and now are slime for selling out.  its the same club it was during Cup.

If you ask me, GRFC is a prime example of why PDL is working.  For years the clubs of GRJSA would field very respectable select clubs only to see the top talent on those clubs move out of the association to EFC, DOS, HPFC, FWU etc., gladly (OK, maybe not gladly    ) paying the higher fees to do so.  They could see the problem, but together couldn't put together a plan to compete with these clubs.

PDL comes along and puts the plan all in black and white.  This is the road map (for lack of a better term) for forming a premier club.   The GRJSA clubs take the advice to heart and form GRFC along those guidelines.  Lo and behold, players start staying in association to play premier level soccer, giving them a great option other than travelling elsewhere.  

As a parent of a club that benefited (note past tense) of GRJSA's lack of a premier program, you might think I'd be upset at the added competition and loss of players coming to play for us.  Not so.  After all... it is about the players and options for them, right?  :mrgreen:

We agree on this actually, the formation of GRFC is a positive step in terms of keeping the talent in the Renton area, and I really do wish them all the success in the world.  The addition of another PDL club in the south/east suburbs does provide more choices, so that's a good thing.  I just don't know (yet) if this was the best thing for the kids (and I mean all the kids in the PDL, not just the ones at GRFC and BHFC).

I think some of these young U-13 and U-14 GRFC teams are really quite good (easily P1s), and I hope they will get that recognition in terms of PDL league ranking.  I don't know as much about BHFC, but I sincerely hope they will also get good treatment from the PDL leadership.

[lester]

I don't think its going to keep the "top talent" in Renton.  The PDL isn't designed to keep good players on their teams. What's the point of having 20 mediocre teams in the State?   The handful of teams that have had success and grouped together to form GRFC are still going to lose their stars.  When they do, GRFC may be going the way of 3 Rivers, then what?

The bottom five or six clubs are always going to have their ebbs and flows. Playing in the "C" division of the PDL is a step down from Dist III and the state leagues.   Will the club dissolve when they get dropped or bounce back two years later after re-grouping in Dist III?  Is the club's membership dependent on keeping the same DOC?

Forming the club might have been good.  Locking into the plan might not be so good.  Every association has to look at it's community and do what's best for their population.

I think following the "...plan all in black and white..." has probably priced out a fair number of future soccer players from that area.  It certainly did in Pierce County where WPFC is heavily populated from outside the association and Harbor is populated by kids from across the bridge (significant here, $$).  True, they were both going there anyway, but they needed to; its not hard to see what the effects are when a new PDL club forms in a similar community.  In six or seven years of trying, SHill couldn't make it work where they are located.  Blackhills has been at it for ten years and are just edging by.  

When everybody has to be paid, when everything has to be paid for,  you lose players, then you need to take someone else's.
If clubs want to be regionally competitive, you can't make income the first qualifier.  Scholarships don't mean squat when you are talking about kids that haven't even hit puberty yet. They don't ever get the chance to be "selected".  

$2K for an eleven year old to play soccer?  That's what's absurd with this whole PDL plan.

[Black Knight]

I don't think its going to keep the "top talent" in Renton.  The PDL isn't designed to keep good players on their teams. What's the point of having 20 mediocre teams in the State?   The handful of teams that have had success and grouped together to form GRFC are still going to lose their stars.  When they do, GRFC may be going the way of 3 Rivers, then what?

The bottom five or six clubs are always going to have their ebbs and flows. Playing in the "C" division of the PDL is a step down from Dist III and the state leagues.   Will the club dissolve when they get dropped or bounce back two years later after re-grouping in Dist III?  Is the club's membership dependent on keeping the same DOC?

Forming the club might have been good.  Locking into the plan might not be so good.  Every association has to look at it's community and do what's best for their population.

I think following the "...plan all in black and white..." has probably priced out a fair number of future soccer players from that area.  It certainly did in Pierce County where WPFC is heavily populated from outside the association and Harbor is populated by kids from across the bridge (significant here, $$).  True, they were both going there anyway, but they needed to; its not hard to see what the effects are when a new PDL club forms in a similar community.  In six or seven years of trying, SHill couldn't make it work where they are located.  Blackhills has been at it for ten years and are just edging by.  

When everybody has to be paid, when everything has to be paid for,  you lose players, then you need to take someone else's.
If clubs want to be regionally competitive, you can't make income the first qualifier.  Scholarships don't mean squat when you are talking about kids that haven't even hit puberty yet. They don't ever get the chance to be "selected".  

$2K for an eleven year old to play soccer?  That's what's absurd with this whole PDL plan.

I'm not gonna comment on most of this. But I don't think you can solely blame cost on the PDL. In vancouver the PDL hasn't affected the prices (and they all start at below 1000 club fee's) yeah with travel and all that they get up to the 2k and so, but that amount would be the exact same whether they were in the PDL or not.

[yote19]

You are wrong Black Knight....It doesn't cost $2000 to run a soccer program with good coaching and still going to all of the tourneys.

Vancouver pricing is low, because they haven't had to follow the supply and demand chain of Puget Sound and the Lords of the PDL.  When you get one group who runs their organization for $3000 or $4000 and calls themselves the best, then you get everybody and their brothers running around hiring more DOC's, coaches etc and charging $2000 saying we may not be the best, but we charge less.  And the beat goes on.

[EWSoccer64]

>>>I swore I'd keep out of the whole PDL bashing thing, but have to call BS on this. The #1 gripe about PDL is they don't let the little guy in. Well, here they let fine community based clubs in (both GRFC and Black Hills) and no one congratulates them........... no, now they become ripe for the bashing.

Pathetic... just flat out pathetic.  
Pathetic...  
Pathetic...  <<<

I remember "Congratuilating" a BH CP even before the word came out that BH was officially accepted.