Saints Soccer Schools

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This is brilliant and exciting news
If we can get a foot hold in the US market it would take our commercial operations to a completely new level especially if we can secure additional funds from commercial sponsors to set up and ongoing running costs making it cost neutral to the UK operation.
This will give us access to a large number of potential US youngsters who could be brought over to play First XI football, increase our US support (sales of kit etc) and if we can make a profit on the actual operation over there then thats the icing on the cake
Happy days...well done Ralph!
 
Dark Lord SFC said:
This is brilliant and exciting news
If we can get a foot hold in the US market it would take our commercial operations to a completely new level especially if we can secure additional funds from commercial sponsors to set up and ongoing running costs making it cost neutral to the UK operation.
This will give us access to a large number of potential US youngsters who could be brought over to play First XI football, increase our US support (sales of kit etc) and if we can make a profit on the actual operation over there then thats the icing on the cake
Happy days...well done Ralph!
Click to expand...

Yes, he did promise some upcoming news during the fans forum. This'll get the word out. May seem obvious but it's very smart thinking, in my opinion. Used in the right way Saints name could become really big. Going to have to start getting some success like European qualification to back the good name and vibes though. That's something we'd all like to see.
 
Look forward to hearing the details over the next few months.
These articles are more latching on to Ralph's comments than an official launch. Loose lips sink ships Ralph.

He mentions coaching at all ages and it will be interesting to see whether we try and get a foothold in the U.S. schools or whether we will be doing summer/holiday camps.
 
I am a bit surprised that there hasn't been more discussion about this development.
For me this is the biggest thing since the move from the Dell to SMS (if you take out nearly going bust) and could make a massive difference to our our US brand awareness and more importantly the commercial and sponsorship income.
Access to the huge pool of US potential footballers is massive
Who is to say we won't see the building of Baltimore Saints FC in the MLS? Sky is the limit!
 
Dark Lord SFC said:
I am a bit surprised that there hasn't been more discussion about this development.
For me this is the biggest thing since the move from the Dell to SMS (if you take out nearly going bust) and could make a massive difference to our our US brand awareness and more importantly the commercial and sponsorship income.
Access to the huge pool of US potential footballers is massive
Who is to say we won't see the building of Baltimore Saints FC in the MLS? Sky is the limit!
Click to expand...

I think there hasn't been because it has only just been announced and we had not the remotest clue of it until Krueger mentioned something during the fans forum. According to him, at that time, we'll hear more in January.

If you mean that you're a bit surprised that we haven't discussed it more here, then perhaps I can see what you mean. But one can only surmise as to what Saints will do in turning this enterprise into commercial advantage. Personally, although I have a woolly idea of how Saints might progress this thing I'm sure there are others on here who could speculate far better on how it might pan out.

However, the area where I find it difficult to conceive is how Saints make the translation from academy teaching, which we do very well, to exposure to the media, and hence getting a much bigger presence. It's all very well training the American child to play football, but if they grow up wanting to play for ManU, Chelsea or even AFCB then that's not making the best use of the experience, from our point of view.

This sort of thing has to go hand in hand with success on the football field at home, otherwise it's just a brilliant idea that others can freely exploit. It's like the company who first made use of the mouse and graphical user interface [GUI] idea on in-house computers. They were called Rank Xerox. Yes, we've heard of them, but the fledgling Steve Jobs [Apple] and Bill Gates [Microsoft] were invited onto their premises to talk about software and those two exploited the GUI idea without them and both grew to dwarf RX. It's Saints who need to benefit from this idea 100%, nobody else, and if we don't have a big enough presence this side of the pond no amount of academy expertise is going to get closer to the likes of Chelsea and ManU, in my opinion. But, as I said, others may have a clearer idea on this.
 
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I don't think there is much to discuss until we see what actually gets implemented.

Lots of the PL clubs claim to have an academy presence in the US, but it's usually just a situation where they "affiliate" with an existing soccer program here. They send some coaches over to do camps, maybe provide some equipment, stuff like that. It's really more for marketing than anything else. Those kids then become fans of that club. And if you have 50 affiliates and some coaches coming over to take a look now and again, there's always the unlikely chance you uncover a hidden gem.

There's nothing wrong with that. I'm kind of annoyed that Saints are one of the few teams that doesn't seem to do that. But it's far short of actually having an academy.

If Saints are kind of just slapping their name on stuff, that's still good but not really that exciting. They're just doing what everyone else does. If they are building or renting an actual facility and putting a team there and sending scouts to pick out players with an eye towards actually turning it into a pipeline for Saints, that would be incredible. I suspect it will be something in between.

Baltimore is a good soccer region. There's a bunch of really good youth teams in that area. It's also a nice mix economically. You can pull from the DC suburbs where there is a bit more international culture and thus soccer interest, and lots of good players because their parents have been able to afford the best coaching for their children. But also you could conceivably pull from Baltimore which has some crazy athletes and churns out NBA and NFL players fairly regularly.
 
I assume that most youngsters trained under the Saints system would go on to play for American sides. Only a few would move to Europe. There will be an increasingly good living to be made in the USA. Our gain will be mainly by increasing our profile in an affluent country. I suspect we will initially train the trainers in our system, rather than have total control over Academies. However, we will have to wait till the New Year to find out.
 
My friend's kid played went to West Ham's semi-elite camp. He loves the sport, and he's very good for his age and all... but realistically I don't think he'll even play college soccer and I don't think he even wants to be a professional. I'm sure he dreams about it to some degree like all kids do.

But he's not like, seriously dedicating himself the way I imagine players in Saints academy do. He lives at home, goes to public school, hangs out with his friends most of whom are not soccer players. He's just a normal kid who is really into soccer. I think that is true of almost all the players.
 
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