Let’s be honest, things have been not great/very bad with DC United as of late. 2020 has been been awful for the team in many respects both on and off the field. Like many fans, I worried we would continue to see more and more bad news.
DC has been passed and even lapped in several aspects when it comes to player spending, finances, and investment, but the academy always seemed to me the most egregious shortcoming, even in the days at RFK. You have the cheapest way to develop talent and foster a community connection in your team, and you decide to just punt for small time gain. Obviously the excuse pre-2018 was the dire finances the club faced year after year from having to rent RFK, not controlling parking revenue, and an uncertain ownership situation . After the move to Audi Field and the accompanying resurgent fan interest, pay to play had to end.
Be a big boy club, quit mooching off the parent’s of kids and do what over 90% of the clubs in MLS are doing. Take advantage of the huge amount of talent that lives in this area. The DC area has a huge Latin American and international population that tops Premier League TV ratings week after week. With all of these abundant local natural resources, we should have more to point to than just Andy Najar and Bill Hamid as top examples of our development. I know the team sold Chris Durkin to Belgium last year, but other than few flashes we never saw him even establish himself as a long term starter with DC. On top of that, right now we are watching a DC academy player in Eryk Williamson contribute offensively in another part of the country on another MLS team. With everything else bad I was ready to pack it on DC doing anything this year to give me a glimmer of hope. Well, that changed this week.
DC United has announced they are ending pay to play to for their academy systems, leaving Minnesota United as the only team that still charges players. For long time fans of the club and soccer in the US, this is a long time coming. It is the clearest sign that the team realizes it can’t just do what it has always done.
Are things perfect? No, there are still a lot of questions, but this does free the burden on coaches to have to negotiate potential scholarship for talented players who couldn’t afford the fees. I am hopeful we see an uptick in the talent level and more signings utilizing a much clearer development structure with the introduction of Loudoun United and Pathway2Pro. As always, time will tell but at the very least DC has a clear defined pipeline. As much as I enjoyed watching DC guys just down the road in Richmond, I understand that’s not a good way to develop players.
While this fix is a big one, it isn’t the only thing. There are still a lot of questions. This team recently dropped their U-13 academy teams, which means early identification will take a hit. There are open questions regarding local partnerships with Pathway2Pro and beyond, such as: how will the other clubs in area take to their best players being poached due to not having to pay? I am not sure making it free, but then scaling things back will be the solution. In this post Covid-19 world, we know the team has suffered economically and staff has been let go or pursued other opportunities. Making the academy free but scaling back the scope doesn’t help much and may even be worse than charging for it.
I hope in five years time we can point to this moment as the moment DC started to get it right. We can talk about Paredes, Yow, Pines, Nyeman, Ku-Dipietro as the beginning of what will become a golden era of youth development for DC United. I hope we see these guys sold when the time is right and the team pumps that investment back into the club and we see a rebirth of DC United as a team that innovates like they did in the 90’s instead of catching up to everyone else. Until then, this is what we have.