The Past, Present and Possible Future of a Return to School Year Age Grouping (2024)

There’s been a lot of added stress permeating the youth soccer landscape with the recent collaborative press release from US Club Soccer, US Youth Soccer and AYSO indicating their ongoing meetings about U.S. Soccer’s consideration of returning to School Year (August 1) Age Grouping for youth soccer. While the earliest a decision would be made on this potential future change is the November 2024 U.S. Soccer Board Meeting, the press release understandably put youth soccer parents into a bit of a tailspin.

There is a lot of confusion, lack of understanding, and misinformation on the School Year Age Grouping discussion, this article is an attempt to provide clarity.

Registering millions of players under a soccer registration cut off date who play in different states with different school year registration cut off dates will always lead to a number of players who do not play with their classmates. The goal here would be to have this number be as small as possible.

There will always be outliers: Children who start school early, are held back, or children who move from one state to another.

While the majority of states register for school with July 15 - September 30 cut off dates, Colorado and Maine register in October and a handful of New England States decide it by the Local Education Agency. Curious to see a list? Check it out.

There is not a perfect solution.

When U.S. Soccer announced the move to Birth Year Age Group Formation in 2017, the uproar was palpable. Our stand at Soccer Parenting was firmly against the move: We wrote many articles on the topic, engaged in email campaigns with our community, developed social media campaigns against it, and met in person with various U.S. Soccer leaders to voice our strong opinions about how irrational the move was for the vast majority of youth soccer players.

The 2017 move to Birth Year was largely a move by U.S. Soccer to help our Youth National Teams compete in International Competitions which are grouped by Birth Year.

Up until this point, our youth national team players in the United States were playing on club teams based on School Year registration but had to play international competitions based on Birth Year. Aside from this being a logistical challenge for National team scouts, there was a notable implication related to Relative Age Effect.

Due to RAE and an August 1 cut off, many of our youth national team players were born towards the end of the year. Therefore, when those players went into an International Competition such as the U17 World Cup, the team from the United States was usually made up of more players who were chronologically (birth date) as well as biologically (growth and maturation) younger than those on the field. This difference in biological age was sometimes a disadvantage to our Youth National Team players when it came to winning games.

And, if you understand RAE, it wasn’t even an immediate solution! It would take a full generation of players for this to make a difference in scouting and Youth National Team performance! When someone from U.S. Soccer informally asked me earlier this year about my thoughts on moving back to School Year Registration – my quippy response was just that question. I said “Was it worth it? Did it even work? Are our Youth National Teams today winning more in international competitions than they were before?”

Birth Year Registration is Not A World Wide Standard

It is important to note a FACT that has not been accurately represented in this conversation.

All of Europe and the rest of the world does NOT do Birth Year Registration. There’s been a lot of narrative along the lines of “This puts us on track with the rest of the world.” or “This is how all of Europe does it.” That is not the case.

England and Wales do school year age grouping.

France does school year age grouping.*

Sweden does school year age grouping.*

Argentina does school year age grouping.

I’m sure there are many more countries as well – these are just the countries I am aware of.

Another important point. In most countries around the world, the school registration date is mandated by the national government, not states like it is here. Many countries do school year registration by birth year (*this is what Sweden and France do) so this entire conversation is not even relevant to any of those countries.

This is an interesting question and I think there are a number of reasons. I'll dive into those specifically in the segment below about What Happens If. Before we get to that, though, I want to mention something I have not often heard brought up in this conversation that MAY be the motivation for U.S. Soccer putting this back on the table and considering it.

I believe likely notable to this conversation is the FIFA Clearing House and the Electronic Player Passport (EPP) programs that were introduced by FIFA in 2022. To comply, Member Associations (U.S. Soccer) are now required to have a National Registration Database and to upload this data to FIFA. (If you are curious, you can find a 3 Hour FIFA Webinar HERE - jump to the 50 minute mark.)

Right now, according to U.S. Soccer bylaws, player registration data is required to be sent to U.S. Soccer each year by organizations: “Each Organization Member shall: register with the Federation each seasonal year the names and addresses of those players, coaches, trainers, managers, administrators, and officials registered with such Organization Member.” (U.S. Soccer Bylaw 212).

At this time, our registration data is a mess as many recreation programs remained at School Year Age Grouping after the 2017 shift. Can you imagine a National Database of the approximately 6,000,000 youth soccer players in America with various registration dates associated with them? A return to School Year Age Grouping for everyone will help align the registration data and potentially help U.S. Soccer be in easier compliance with FIFA. Which, by the way, is very important.

Before the 2017 move to Birth Year Age Grouping the term “trapped player” did not even exist in our youth soccer vernacular. Now, it’s an unfortunate common occurrence. School sports play an important part in the growing up experience of our children in America. With Birth Year Age Grouping, approximately40% of players are a school year ahead of the rest of the team. When the 40% goes to middle school or high school the remainingapproximate60% of players are left without a viable team during the middle or high school season. These players are “trapped without a team.”

A move back to School Year Age Grouping eliminates “trapped players.” While there will still be a small number of players who are a year ahead based on the difference between school year registration in the specific state and the (potential) August 1 cut off teams will absolutely NOT be disrupted like they are today. The handful of players a year ahead can go and play school soccer, and there will be plenty of remaining players to maintain a team.

With Birth Year Age Grouping there ends up being a potential problem for approximately 60% of players’ Senior years – as 40% of the team graduates from high school. The workaround after the shift to Birth Year Age Grouping in 2017 was to combine teams for the final two years – making it a team of the 60% of seniors that were left behind (trapped) and the 40% of seniors on the younger team AND the 60% of juniors on the younger team. These teams are too big. A move back to School Year Age Grouping would eliminate this problem.

Side note to this is the unfortunate fact that many children stop playing soccer towards the end of high school and there can be a shortage of players on older teams. There is a narrative where the combining of older teams has been a solution for player shortages on older teams. This would still be a viable solution with a move back to School Year Age Grouping.

Whereas National Team Scouting would be harder with a School Year Age Grouping (impacting a very small number of players), college recruiting would be easier (impacting more players than national team scouting). When a college scout watches a game, they will be confident that most of the players on the team are the same school year which is important in the college recruiting process.

It’s been interesting to hear this “College Recruiting will be Easier” reason being speculated in social media as the primary reason for moving back to School Year Age Grouping. While the move to Birth Year was largely for National Team Scouting, I don’t really see a move back to School Year Age Grouping being triggered because of the demands or college coaches, it’s just an added benefit.

If you’ve made it this far in reading this post you are invested in this decision, so let’s get aligned about what’s most important moving forward(I welcome your thoughts on this in the comments).

Here are my thoughts:

At Soccer Parenting we believe that parents are key stakeholders in the youth soccer ecosystem, and their voice must be a part of the conversation.

3. We Must Find Solutions to Limit the Disruption and Stress to Players.

That was a different era of U.S. Soccer, though.

One of the things that makes me optimistic about the future of youth soccer in America is the recent improvements to U.S. Soccer:

• Leadership that is not driven irrationally by MLS,
• Quality new employees oftentimes coming from other industries,
• Increasing communication and transparency,
• Recent additions to the Board,
• The consistent formulation of “working groups” on topics to have more voices in the room (we need even MORE voices, though. I am curious how many youth players and parents who are not working full time in soccer are in working groups),
• A sincere focus on Safe Soccer,
• and more.

There are still improvements U.S. Soccer needs to make and there is still a long way to go to forge trust and increase collaboration in the youth soccer ecosystem. A potential return to School Year Age Grouping can be an opportunity for the youth soccer ecosystem to come together to minimize the stress that will be felt by players, families, clubs and communities.If it happens, let’s all be sure we do our part to make that happen.

Author note: My intention with this article is to not demonstrate bias, but instead to be clear on what will result. With that in mind, I added in #6 "Our Most Elite Players will be Impacted" after initially publishing this article and after hearing from someone at MLS NEXT.