Thoughts about the MAPLE anti-tampering rule

[dd2]

With all the posts about the Scorpions v. NEFC debate, I thought I'd post separately about the merits of MAPLE's anti-tampering rule.

I can think of 3 reasons to have a rule against tampering:

1. Offers to players before a season is over could affect the competitive integrity of the game. A player who knows that she will play for club B next year may give less than full effort for her present club, especially when playing against club B. For example, if a game was significant for automatic Region 1 Premier League acceptance, the temptation to help club B would simply be a matter of the player's self-interest.

2. Anti-tampering rules promote an orderly and fair system of players switching teams. Clubs all have an equal chance to pitch themselves to the most desired players. And, more importantly for youth soccer, all players have an equal chance to compete for spots without having to worry about beating other players to tryouts that aren't advertised.

3. Prohibition against tampering keeps people from interfering in the coach/player relationship during the season. A person trying to persuade a player to leave his team could easily add gratuitous derogatory remarks about the player's existing coach in order to stir discontent.

I think these are pretty good reasons to prohibit tampering. If I ran MAPLE, I'd discipline clubs that tamper pretty hard. There isn't any reason that all the recruiting, offers, etc. that influence player movement can't be accomplished after the season is over.

That having been said, I think MAPLE should pass some rules to ensure that a post-season player market has time to operate properly. Right now, there's a "land rush" mentality surrounding tryouts in June. Clubs, especially the bigger ones, rush to hold tryouts to the point that they often hold tryouts on the same day. They then make offers quickly to players they want and sometimes pressure players to commit before players have a chance to look at all their options. This kind of behavior only encourages tampering because clubs feel they need to "jump the gun" in order to communicate with potential recruits. Additionally, players thinking about changing clubs feel they need to talk to clubs before tryouts in order to find out if they will be accepted to new teams. If they don't find this information, it's simply too dangerous to skip their existing team's tryouts.

Why not have a rule that no offers to join a MAPLE team can be accepted or withdrawn (they can be declined) before 21 days from the opening of the tryout period? This would take the pressure off clubs to hold tryouts in the first few days and would give players plenty of time to go to multiple tryouts and check out their options. This would also reduce the incentive to tamper. If clubs know that players can't be signed for 3 weeks, there's plenty of time to contact the players that are of interest.

[Unregistered]

With all the posts about the Scorpions v. NEFC debate, I thought I'd post separately about the merits of MAPLE's anti-tampering rule.

I can think of 3 reasons to have a rule against tampering:

1. Offers to players before a season is over could affect the competitive integrity of the game. A player who knows that she will play for club B next year may give less than full effort for her present club, especially when playing against club B. For example, if a game was significant for automatic Region 1 Premier League acceptance, the temptation to help club B would simply be a matter of the player's self-interest.

2. Anti-tampering rules promote an orderly and fair system of players switching teams. Clubs all have an equal chance to pitch themselves to the most desired players. And, more importantly for youth soccer, all players have an equal chance to compete for spots without having to worry about beating other players to tryouts that aren't advertised.

3. Prohibition against tampering keeps people from interfering in the coach/player relationship during the season. A person trying to persuade a player to leave his team could easily add gratuitous derogatory remarks about the player's existing coach in order to stir discontent.

I think these are pretty good reasons to prohibit tampering. If I ran MAPLE, I'd discipline clubs that tamper pretty hard. There isn't any reason that all the recruiting, offers, etc. that influence player movement can't be accomplished after the season is over.

That having been said, I think MAPLE should pass some rules to ensure that a post-season player market has time to operate properly. Right now, there's a "land rush" mentality surrounding tryouts in June. Clubs, especially the bigger ones, rush to hold tryouts to the point that they often hold tryouts on the same day. They then make offers quickly to players they want and sometimes pressure players to commit before players have a chance to look at all their options. This kind of behavior only encourages tampering because clubs feel they need to "jump the gun" in order to communicate with potential recruits. Additionally, players thinking about changing clubs feel they need to talk to clubs before tryouts in order to find out if they will be accepted to new teams. If they don't find this information, it's simply too dangerous to skip their existing team's tryouts.

Why not have a rule that no offers to join a MAPLE team can be accepted or withdrawn (they can be declined) before 21 days from the opening of the tryout period? This would take the pressure off clubs to hold tryouts in the first few days and would give players plenty of time to go to multiple tryouts and check out their options. This would also reduce the incentive to tamper. If clubs know that players can't be signed for 3 weeks, there's plenty of time to contact the players that are of interest.

How about no rules and a free market? If the club and coach are providing good value then there is nothing to worry about. If a player wants to move they should be able to. These are kids after all.

[Unregistered]

How about no rules and a free market? If the club and coach are providing good value then there is nothing to worry about. If a player wants to move they should be able to. These are kids after all.

Read the post again. The good reasons for this rule are to protect the players, not to keep them from changing clubs. If there weren't rules about when and how players can be recruited, the grownups involved will wreck it for the kids during the spring season. These rules are meant to put a lid on the recruitment during the playing season so the kids can focus on enjoying the game. They are kids, after all, and deserve to spend the Maple season playing with their chosen team in peace. When the season is over, if they want to move on, they can -- and always have been able to.

[Unregistered]

...the grownups involved will wreck it for the kids during the spring season.

Grownups in youth soccer always have and always will be the problem.

[dd2]

I thought about the no rules, totally free market approach and was initially drawn to it because I think that the recruiting of players by other clubs is one of the few curbs to common problems in club soccer. I think that clubs take players for granted way too often, and make training/playing time/tactical decisions for the club's benefit at the expense of player interests. If it were easier for clubs to lose players, they might pay better attention to them.

The free market approach does increase pressure on clubs to keep players happy, but I rejected it for two reasons. First, any pressure created isn't that great because players will have difficulty moving in-season due to roster size limitations and state cup roster freezes. Thus, a properly structured post-season market could create about as much pressure on clubs to take care of players as an in-season one. Second, and this was the big one for me, I decided that in-season recruiting would heavily favor the stud players that everyone wants to recruit. Those players are already taken care of by their clubs and have lots of post-season options if they want them. Increasing their in-season recruiting doesn't create much pressure on clubs that don't already exist, and it reduces opportunities for kids who might be new to club soccer or not quite as well known. If MAPLE properly structured the post-season market, the stud players would have an orderly process to consider their options and lesser players would still have fair chances to try out. And, of course, all clubs would know when to make their pitches to the players they want without wasting time during the season when the attention should be on their existing players.

I have little sympathy for clubs, especially big clubs, that mistreat players and cry foul when other clubs try to woo disgruntled players away. If I thought that eliminating rules against tampering would put significant pressure on clubs to treat players better, I'd be all for it. But, in the end, I think that clubs who lose their way will lose players (and the associated prestige and revenue) quite quickly as long as the post-season market allows players time to follow their best interests.

[Unregistered]

I am a MAPLE coach, if MAPLE does nothing in the up coming hearing, I am going to call every player on every rival within an hour's drive time and recruit each and every player for my team.

If MAPLE indeed does nothing to suspend coaches, severely penalize the club financially or sanction the club, what incentive would there be for me to stop my actions?

Those of you who want a "free market"... it is going to be chaos... this will open up a sh*tstorm like no one's every imagined because I WILL NOT BE ALONE IN MY ACTIONS.

[Unregistered]

Here comes the rain....

I am a MAPLE coach, if MAPLE does nothing in the up coming hearing, I am going to call every player on every rival within an hour's drive time and recruit each and every player for my team.

If MAPLE indeed does nothing to suspend coaches, severely penalize the club financially or sanction the club, what incentive would there be for me to stop my actions?

Those of you who want a "free market"... it is going to be chaos... this will open up a sh*tstorm like no one's every imagined because I WILL NOT BE ALONE IN MY ACTIONS.

And this would be something new...I heard a team had a top player recruited from her recently demoted to Masc U-14G team to a "D" Maple team last week..and once the coach got her he tried for a few others from the same team. Tried to take the whole team down 1 week before the start of the season.

The bottom line is 1) the rules are NOT enforced 2) and a $250 fine is chump change, this guy was offer free scholarships like Happy Meal toys...So what is another $250..big deal

If we want rules they need to be enforced and have teeth to them.

Maybe this one is (NEFC) so blantent and so dispicible is sets a new standard foir scummy and so should set the standard for punishment.

My bet, viva la S**tstorm and lets all get big umbrellas, cause Maple doesn't have the stones to penalize a club like NEFC that pays HUGE money to MAPLE for its teams to play.

I really hope MAPLE proves me wrong, but I would not bet the house on it...

[Unregistered]

My bet, viva la S**tstorm and lets all get big umbrellas, cause Maple doesn't have the stones to penalize a club like NEFC that pays HUGE money to MAPLE for its teams to play.

I really hope MAPLE proves me wrong, but I would not bet the house on it...

ring the bell we have a winner here! cha-ching!

Fall Season 2009
Team Pts W L T GF GA GD
Under 10 Boys Blue T 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 10 Boys Green S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Boys Blue F 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Boys Green B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 12 Boys Blue B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 12 Boys Green A 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 12 Boys Red R 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 13 Boys 1st K 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 13 Boys 1st B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 13 Boys 3rd Blue F 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 13 Boys 3rd Red S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 14 Boys 2nd P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 10 Girls Blue B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 10 Girls Blue D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 10 Girls Green J 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 10 Girls White M 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 10 Girls White D 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 10 Girls White P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls Blue J 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls Blue A 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls Green M 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls Green H 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls Orange P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls Orange B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls Purple R 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls White G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 11 Girls White B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 12 Girls Blue C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 12 Girls Orange S 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 12 Girls Orange P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 12 Girls Red H 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 13 Girls 2nd L 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 13 Girls 3rd Blue G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 13 Girls 3rd Red B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 14 Girls 2nd B 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Under 14 Girls 3rd G 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0

[beentheredonethat]

dd2 .. The only way you can do something about recruiting is to restrict player movement and only let them move during a specified time of the year. Outside of that there is no practical way to police tampering. If you put such policies in place what then happens when a coach offers a spot to a kid then never plays them or proves to be a lousy coach. The kid gets stuck. From what I have seen over the years kids don't leave teams that they are happy with.

[Unregistered]

dd2 .. The only way you can do something about recruiting is to restrict player movement and only let them move during a specified time of the year. Outside of that there is no practical way to police tampering. If you put such policies in place what then happens when a coach offers a spot to a kid then never plays them or proves to be a lousy coach. The kid gets stuck. From what I have seen over the years kids don't leave teams that they are happy with.

When you pay for a service you can change the provider anytime you want, folks want to turn it into China. Please wake up.

[Unregistered]

dd2, as usual, has the most thoughtful analysis of a subject...

Allowing tampering during a season is not a good idea. It makes teams and players the most vulnerable to suffering the greatest consequences from the type of fallouts between clubs and coaches evident in this latest example that (unfortunately) has generated an incredible amount of interest and posting. You do not want a scenario where a coach and/or certain players/parents can wreck, even in subtle ways, a team's state cup performance or divisional standing for the following year.

On the other hand, there are no good guys in this story. Has anyone asked why Scorps didn't wait to announce their big administrative changes in the club until the end of the season??? No one, including the Scorps, could have failed to understand that significant fallout would occur with certain long-term coaches with the longest tenures having a problem with the changes. And, aside from the "legal" technicalities, just on a human level it would make sense for those persons to feel some degree of entitlement to the programs that they developed and had so much responsibility for. Although it is conceivable that the Scorps will get some kind of a "win" out of this, it is ridiculous to look at them as an aggrieved party. They will generate very little sympathy, and it is likely that there will be a direct relationship between the extent of their "win" on this and the degree to which this whole episode, and pursuing redress, ultimately will hurt them. In other words, the more the Scorps pursue this and actually get somewhere the worse this will be for Scorps after all is said and done. Folks don't like other folks getting mistreated, or the perception of them being mistreated, and there is a perception in this instance, as well as past instances, that less than ideal dealings with the coaches is what is really underneath this whole story. Does the long defunct 3-year rule ring a bell?

And there really is a lot of disingenuous posturing on this whole topic. The moralists here are not above pursuing players or letting interest float out 3rd hand during seasons. They're not above letting and even inviting a player to attend some practices to check out the team and see if there is mutual interest. We certainly don't believe that these players who change clubs every few months really drop their current club until they have the full assurance from the receiving club, do we? I respect folks who actually have some standards, and who aren't just adjusting to whatever the rules state. Litigious nitpicking doesn't equate with ethical behavior. We want people who actually exceed the rules, like a coach or club who won't take players or even engage them (regardless of the juvenile issue of "who called who first") until after a season. And while in general player "rights" should be a consideration, I don't know if that means mid-season transfers should be allowed even if player-initiated. Stick it out or play town soccer for a couple of months, and then go try out like everybody else and join your new club at the appropriate time.

To the coach (if you are indeed a coach) who says you will call every player in the area if this "hearing" goes the wrong way, you have revealed your true character. Do you have any independent standards of your own? What about the commitment you just made for the year to 16-18 or 22 kids?

[Unregistered]

dd2, as usual, has the most thoughtful analysis of a subject...

Allowing tampering during a season is not a good idea. It makes teams and players the most vulnerable to suffering the greatest consequences from the type of fallouts between clubs and coaches evident in this latest example that (unfortunately) has generated an incredible amount of interest and posting. You do not want a scenario where a coach and/or certain players/parents can wreck, even in subtle ways, a team's state cup performance or divisional standing for the following year.

On the other hand, there are no good guys in this story. Has anyone asked why Scorps didn't wait to announce their big administrative changes in the club until the end of the season??? No one, including the Scorps, could have failed to understand that significant fallout would occur with certain long-term coaches with the longest tenures having a problem with the changes. And, aside from the "legal" technicalities, just on a human level it would make sense for those persons to feel some degree of entitlement to the programs that they developed and had so much responsibility for. Although it is conceivable that the Scorps will get some kind of a "win" out of this, it is ridiculous to look at them as an aggrieved party. They will generate very little sympathy, and it is likely that there will be a direct relationship between the extent of their "win" on this and the degree to which this whole episode, and pursuing redress, ultimately will hurt them. In other words, the more the Scorps pursue this and actually get somewhere the worse this will be for Scorps after all is said and done. Folks don't like other folks getting mistreated, or the perception of them being mistreated, and there is a perception in this instance, as well as past instances, that less than ideal dealings with the coaches is what is really underneath this whole story. Does the long defunct 3-year rule ring a bell?

And there really is a lot of disingenuous posturing on this whole topic. The moralists here are not above pursuing players or letting interest float out 3rd hand during seasons. They're not above letting and even inviting a player to attend some practices to check out the team and see if there is mutual interest. We certainly don't believe that these players who change clubs every few months really drop their current club until they have the full assurance from the receiving club, do we? I respect folks who actually have some standards, and who aren't just adjusting to whatever the rules state. Litigious nitpicking doesn't equate with ethical behavior. We want people who actually exceed the rules, like a coach or club who won't take players or even engage them (regardless of the juvenile issue of "who called who first") until after a season. And while in general player "rights" should be a consideration, I don't know if that means mid-season transfers should be allowed even if player-initiated. Stick it out or play town soccer for a couple of months, and then go try out like everybody else and join your new club at the appropriate time.

To the coach (if you are indeed a coach) who says you will call every player in the area if this "hearing" goes the wrong way, you have revealed your true character. Do you have any independent standards of your own? What about the commitment you just made for the year to 16-18 or 22 kids?

Finally, two very thoughtful posts on this subject! Perhaps some good might come from this mess, even if it's only to get MAPLE to clarify this issue in a way that really protects and supports the players. I think the strongest argument for the tampering rule is to keep a lid on this stuff until after SC so the players and coaches can concentrate on one season at a time. It might take a huge upheaval like this in the lives of a large number of players mid season to get everyone's attention, but going forward, this rule needs to be rewritten in a way that garners it at least some modicum of respect and compliance.

[Unregistered]

Read the post again. The good reasons for this rule are to protect the players, not to keep them from changing clubs. If there weren't rules about when and how players can be recruited, the grownups involved will wreck it for the kids during the spring season. These rules are meant to put a lid on the recruitment during the playing season so the kids can focus on enjoying the game. They are kids, after all, and deserve to spend the Maple season playing with their chosen team in peace. When the season is over, if they want to move on, they can -- and always have been able to.

I agree with you. Even the NFL has anti-tampering rules. However, parents' egos are such that instead of seeing it as tampering, they are flattered that Suzy is being "recruited" at age 10. And how do you bust the tampering team without someone dropping a dime? Also, without someone to enforce the rule it becomes a mute issue. Sadly, the leadership of these organizations are not in it for the kids as it has been pointed out and said many times.

[Unregistered]

I agree with you. Even the NFL has anti-tampering rules. However, parents' egos are such that instead of seeing it as tampering, they are flattered that Suzy is being "recruited" at age 10. And how do you bust the tampering team without someone dropping a dime? Also, without someone to enforce the rule it becomes a mute issue. Sadly, the leadership of these organizations are not in it for the kids as it has been pointed out and said many times.

I haven't seen any rules posted about tampering with another club's coaches. Are there any? Seems like a way to really screw things up would be to offer one or more dissatisfied coaches more money to bring over a team or teams. That is so much more efficient than calling individual players.

Where I work, we are required to sign no-compete. I work for a fairly large company and at one division, a number of scientists didn't sign and there were no serious issues. HR tried to tie signing to raises and it didn't fly. At least if you try to do something then you know where you stand. From what is written, it looks like the clubs could do a better job of protecting themselves. It might involve sharing the pie more evenly to get stability? Clubs are businesses, so why not look to business as a basis for structure?

Coaches are the basis of clubs. If a key group leaves any of the majors it causes serious problems for the parents and the club. Sometimes its only a charismatic individual - those who run development programs well can have huge followings. Was involved with an awesome development guy about 5 years back at another girls powerhouse (no more). When he left it was like an artery being cut. Maybe he would have left anyway, but from all reports there wasn't a good management / coach power structure relationship.

[Unregistered]

"1. Offers to players before a season is over could affect the competitive integrity of the game. A player who knows that she will play for club B next year may give less than full effort for her present club, especially when playing against club B. For example, if a game was significant for automatic Region 1 Premier League acceptance, the temptation to help club B would simply be a matter of the player's self-interest."

I believe that this is a valid reason. This situation would conflict anyone. Adults have a hard time balancing this type of situation when they know that they are changing jobs in a short two or three weeks. Children would have a very, very hard time balancing this sort of thing over several weeks of a season.

I have had personal experience in MAPLE with this. I noted in this forum before how a kid had been recruited during the third game of a spring MAPLE season. The response might be how do you know and my answer is everyone knows. The MAPLE/Club community of players, parents and coaches is very small.

The player in question was a forward and had scored on average two goals and an assist per game over the fall and the first two games of the spring season. The third game of the spring was against the team that she was rumored to go to and the directors of the club came to watch the game. Mind you I never once saw them as spectators of games they were not coaching at our home park before that game or after.

The forward scored against them in that game but never scored for us again in any of the remaining spring games. Her parents told me that she was not staying following the last MAPLE game and the forward did score in our Memorial day tournament.

I will always believe that she was conflicted knowing that she and her parents had decided to quit our team.

People seem so self-centered that they forget that a large number of other kids help support the efforts of their kid and can be effected by what their child does. Stay within the rules and be fair to all!