St. Louis merger important step for youth development, pro league

by Robert Ziegler 11/13/2007

It doesn’t look like much now, but 400 acres of mostly-empty fields in Collinsville, Illinois may soon be the site for the most forward-thinking youth soccer initiative in America.

It’s easy to call that hype, but if you look at the plans St. Louis-area attorney Jeff Cooper has put together, the efforts successfully made to secure the necessary business and government backing, plus the already-accomplished deal to merge 3 of the main elite youth clubs in the area, it’s clear that this project is far more than words and paper.

Now it’s all up to Major League Soccer.

The St. Louis Soccer venture is anxiously awaiting word from MLS about if and when it will be awarded a new franchise. The league has officially announced San Jose (beginning play in 2008) and Seattle (2009) as the 14th and 15th teams in the league. It is apparent that another team is desired by 2009 in order to avoid scheduling difficulties inherent in an odd number. It is also likely that the league will expand to 18 teams in 2010 or 2011.

So it’s probably down to St. Louis or Philadelphia for that 16th franchise, with the runner-up probably only having to wait another year or 2 for its chance to enter the league. For his part, Cooper thinks its likely that no team will be announced this weekend at the MLS Cup festivities in Washington, with the decision from the league possibly being linked to the awarding of an 18th team (possibly in New York, Portland or a Canadian city).

Timetables aside, the St. Louis model is promising on the youth development side for many reasons, which to be understood requires a quick history lesson on the relationship between MLS and youth soccer.

Never the twain shall meet
The history is basically that there is no history. The clubs and organizations in the youth soccer world have kept a wary eye on Major League Soccer during its emergence. While there was some willingness to work together on some group ticket sales and the occasional cooperative venture with ODP, there has been an underlying message to the league admonishing it to stay away from the youth marketplace. While this underscores the fact that most of youth soccer was a business place first and a player development venue afterward, MLS had mainly adhered to that warning. What youth programs it had tended to be fairly obscure on the overall landscape.

Last year at MLS Cup, the league announced its player development initiative, allowing its clubs to develop players and sign them to contracts, much like what is done in the rest of the world (where college athletics are not nearly as prominent on the sporting landscape). It has to be said the MLS clubs’ youth development record over the past 12 months is mixed. Even allowing for a period of time needed to get such a program up and running, nobody has really jumped out and taken a lead. Chicago, New York, Kansas City and Chivas USA have perhaps earned some notoriety in the first year, but in terms of someone really standing apart and changing the youth soccer world around them, we’re still waiting.

Our wait may be over. Cooper has engineered a merger of 3 of the biggest youth clubs in the St. Louis area, Scott Gallagher SC, St. Louis SC and Southern Illinois club Metro United. On June 1 these clubs and perhaps others will operate under the ownership of the new St. Louis professional organization (whether or not is has been awarded a franchise by then). More than 250 travel teams will be under the same organization, sharing a set of fields around the area including more than a dozen new fields at the central complex in Collinsville. These will be in the shadows of an 18,500 seat stadium that will serve as the centerpiece of the 400-acre development project, including commercial and residential areas.

So there's no worry about the youth and pro arenas competing with one another, because for the first time in this country, they will truly be one and the same.

Considering the provincial rivalries that elite youth soccer tends to create, getting the 3 long-time clubs together was no small feat, but Cooper says it wasn’t that hard.

“I guess it was just dumb luck,” the 38-year old Cooper said from the East Alton, IL law firm SimmonsCooper, where he is managing partner. “I was able to get directors like Kevin Kalish (Scott Gallagher), Dale Schilly (Metro United) and Steve Pecher (St. Louis SC) who were not only concerned about development at their own club but about developing kids from across the region. So it was pretty easy when we sat down with them the first time and to have them say ‘This is a great idea. We can do this better.’ It’s actually been a pretty easy time.”

Pecher noted that a similar merger had been talked about before.

“Kevin and I had started talking about putting our clubs together 3 or 4 years ago,” he said. “We’ve always felt it was the right way to go. When Jeff Cooper came to us in January and showed us how much of the leg work was already done, for us it was the right thing to do.”

For Schilly, whose current club facility is practically adjacent to where the new complex will be built, the decision to get involved wasn’t hard.

“We knew they had been having conversations,” he said. “When we found out the stadium was right down the road and what an opportunity it was, it was a real no-brainer.”

Under the merger, now agreed on by the club’s respective boards and members, the teams will be under one umbrella, but each of 3 divisions will be led by one of the directors in conjunction with separate boards. Kalish will direct Boys’ teams, Pecher will direct Girls and Schilly will direct Illinois teams.

“There will be a transition period and of course we want to utilize the experience and expertise of the people who have been involved with youth soccer in this area,” said Corey Stephens, project coordinator for St. Louis Soccer United, “but after June 1 it will be one organization.”

The team structure at the younger age groups will not change much, if at all, under the merger. Teams will still compete at varying levels according to ability, and will likely train at fields relatively close to players’ homes all around the St. Louis fields. For older ages however, the USSF Academy League will mesh nicely with the new organization’s academy concept, which calls for top players to be promoted into a more elite training and competitive atmosphere. For Cooper, this is a key part of the whole deal.

“We want to concentrate the academy kids in one facility. There will be 3 age groups for both boys and girls, and they will each play for a head coach who is highly credentialed, playing right there by the main stadium,” Cooper said. “The head coach of the MLS team will also be in charge of the individual academy programs. He’ll be able to come down and sit with the coaches, help mentor academy players and involve some of the special kids in the 1st team training if he sees fit.”

Cooper insists that this kind of setup is vital for the continued development of the game in this country.

“The hole of American soccer is not from age 17 down. We can compete with any one club or nation at those ages,” he said. “What happens is when our very best 18 year olds go on training with kids, and everyone else’s are playing with men. So at the academy level we will strongly encourage the best players to play professionally right out of high school. For those that don’t, we’ll encourage them to be at St. Louis (University) or (Southern Illinois-Edwardsville – just minutes from the complex). Then within the rules they can be coming over and continuing to train with us in their preseason, or working with St. Louis youth teams and continuing to be around our squad. So a kid in our system may be playing games against other kids in college, but hopefully the training with pros will take them a step up. For the kids who choose to go directly in to pro soccer, they’ll be doing it in a very European model where we work out partnerships with clubs around the world and loan out developmental players. Kids at 17 maybe can go over and play in League 2 in England or some place that is a little familiar – then come back and see where they might rate as a professional player here.”

Cooper’s ability to accomplish these things is underscored by his investment in English soccer club Brentford and various other sports-related enterprises including minor-league baseball and race horses. He is also one of the inaugural owners for the new women’s professional soccer league that is scheduled to begin play in 2009.

Cooper also believes that the development of local players is a key part of MLS being successful at the box office.

“St. Louis has such a history in soccer. If all the St. Louis kids could be captured and kept here, it would be very successful,” he said. “If you put all the kids in MLS now who are from St. Louis, you could field almost an entire team. Last night (Nov. 8) we saw a St. Louis player, Taylor Twellman score a fantastic goal to win a conference championship. We’re confident going into the future we can put 11 Taylor Twellmans out on the field, plus the head and assistant coaches. The fan base and the way the team is covered and how they are looked at by the community, will be different than if you just got players from anywhere.”

Schilly said the actual work of youth development, at all levels, should be helped by the merger.

“Around the world you see clubs where it’s easy for all the people in a municipality to be involved in one organization,” he said. “What we’ve done is unify the majority of St. Louis into one organization. The cohesiveness of a large group brings a real benefit. From my point of view it’s an opportunity to work the talented players and coaches in all the organizations. We can share information and work together to the benefit of all the kids.”

Kalish concurred, noting that the move will put the area ahead of other markets in the U.S.

“All players from the elite level to competitive to even recreational players will have their environments enhanced, through increased staffing and quality facilities,” Kalish said. “One of the main reasons why we’ve done this is so we can quite competing within the current marketplace and instead compete against other markets. It brings St. Louis together and allows us to look at Chicago and Southern California as our competition instead of each other. That will be the long-term direction of youth soccer. By consolidating our organizations into one business model will bring many benefits.”

Pecher said families have been generally receptive to the idea, noting that the idea of the best players being pulled to highest-level teams is not a new concept within the merging clubs. The idea of teams from the same club competing against one another in a St. Louis area league is also not new.

Stephens said the projected assessment for club members is only $600 on average, including training time, training and match uniforms, club fees and insurance. Not covered are league and tournament fees.