http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files/AMA/l...chment%20A.pdf
NCAA rules are byzantine and very hard to wrap one's head around sometimes, but according to everything I've read, the rule currently is that if one pro player was in an academy, everybody who played with him was ineligible for college, not just that player.In sports other than men's ice hockey and skiing, to specify that prior to initial full-time collegiate enrollment, an individual may enter into an agreement to compete on a professional team and compete on a professional team, provided the agreement does not guarantee or promise payment (at any time) in excess of actual and necessary expenses to participate on the team;
But the new rule the Council has adopted (late January) and that should take effect* starting with kids who enroll in the fall of 2010, is that only the players who made money are ineligible, and the rest will still be considered amateurs.
This could mean a whole bunch of things for soccer, almost all of them, from my point of view, good:
- An Academy player can possibly play in a match game for the frist team, without pay.
- An influx of foreign academy products in the NCAA, raising the level of play.
- A player could get signed by MLS (or, for that matter, an independent youth academy could sign one) and kept on a youth team without endangering his teammates' college eligibility.
- A PDL team could field a mixed roster of pros and college players. (Or a USL team, or technically even MLS, but I would bet the players union might have a problem or two with teams saving money by using unpaid labor.)
* - Now, this rule, from what I'm reading (my source for interpretation is here) isn't quite a done deal yet. There is an override possibility until March 17. It would take 30 member schools to send it back for review, and if they still want it, it would be voted on at the next Convention.
So it's not quite all done yet, but it looks like this rule is indeed likely to go into effect, and it could herald distinct improvements to both NCAA soccer and MLS academies.
THE LEAGUE IS IMPROVING, AND ITS STARTING FROM THE GRASSROOTS
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