> Others disagree. Ex-USMNT player Alexi Lalas is a defender of the model. “Pay to play is not ruining youth soccer,” Lalas recently wrote on social media. “Mil

> Others disagree. Ex-USMNT player Alexi Lalas is a defender of the model. “Pay to play is not ruining youth soccer,” Lalas recently wrote on social media. “Millions benefit. It’s a business catering to a market willing to pay for the product. Soccer (like piano lessons) is not an inalienable right. Free soccer costs money. Someone has to pay. So who will pay for all this free soccer?” Nobody said it has to be free. Just not so crazy expensive. Anyway, Lalas is part of the problem. He's rich and "famous" and he's never going to do anything that improves the US Soccer landscape if it means that his position is diminished in any way. He was one of the best American players in his time, but that just isn't very impressive. He knows it, and he thinks that if American soccer improves he'll be forgotten. But anyway, at your local level the behavior of the pay-to-play clubs destroys any attempts to create an alternative. They are constantly violating the meager rules that are in place. They'll steal your players. They'll play roster games to make sure that there is always a couple of top-level players eligible to sub into the mid-level matches. They talk about other clubs and use branded merch to ensure that there is peer pressure to not join any other club. They do practice schedules that intentionally interfere with other sports, so talented kids have to pick one sport or the other. Etc.