The Name Game

I am a positive person. I believe in a world where the Fort Lauderdale Strikers will live again. I believe South Florida can support an MLS team, maybe two. I believe. I believe that. I believe that we. I believe that we will see the Strikers again!

But there are a few things that drive me crazy. One of those things are soccer camps. At not just any soccer camp, it's those club branded soccer camps. I'm talking to you Barcelona and PSG. I won't go into the rant that soccer camps are just money makers and have no positive affect on soccer in our communities. 

If we're going to have soccer camps they have to have ties to local soccer.

I grew up with two soccer camps, both devices of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. I was blessed with the Thomas Rongen Soccer Camp and the Nene Cubillas Camp Futbol. Both camps run by Strikers. Today our children are being drawn by these big clubs, Barcelona and PSG. But that's not all. I was picking up my son from school and in the office I saw a flyer for a Colo Colo soccer camp. Are you kidding me?

What's next? Pachuca? Manchester United? Is that what we're coming to? Do we need to brand our soccer with these clubs to provide validity?

If we believe that we are a soccer community, a soccer producing community, then drop these brands and have pride in yourself. We are doing ourselves a disservice. It's part of why we get the ICC games, international friendlies, but very little professional soccer. 

The casual soccer fan here. The fan that we need to cater to has all of these brands coming to town diluting our own local product. Stop the branded camps. We need more local action. We need to create our own brands.