Stop the Birth-Year Mandate for U.S. Youth Soccer!

This U.S. Soccer Federation mandate dictates that kids will be put on teams based on the year they were born and not their school year. This has a number of negative implications for youth soccer:

1. It means that kids born between August and December will be left without a team in their senior year of high school.

2. It means that small communities that have limited numbers of children within each age group may not be able to build new teams and will have to disband.

3. It means that many kids will lose a year of training, (ex: for a current Aug-Dec 2005 U10 forced into U12 next year). See US Youth Soccer Matrix

4. It means that kids who have been playing together for years may be broken up and put into new teams.

5. It means that Aug-Dec kids may be left without a team in their 8th-9th grade transition.

To summarize: No development advantage, Less kids playing, Less interest in soccer, Less money coming into soccer & Less soccer Culture.

We do not need a mandate that creates obstacles for so many kids to playing soccer.

Please sign this petition to urge the USSF to reverse its birth-year mandate and share the Facebook page against mandate