Our Background
Soccer is the second most popular youth participant sport in America (behind basketball) with an estimated seven million boys and girls playing in 2013. Roughly 20 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls nationally between the ages of 11 and 14 have played competitive high school or club soccer. Those numbers drop dramatically among urban and low-income populations. Minority status, low household income, high neighborhood density, and single-parent households all correlate highly with low participation in youth soccer in America.
Competitive high school and club youth soccer in Miami-Dade County reflect these trends. Dense, low-income communities are limited in their ability to invest resources to attract players and families; and the fee-based structure of existing clubs is prohibitively expensive for many low-income populations.
Despite limited after-school opportunities for organized soccer clubs soccer in Miami’s Haitian-American neighborhoods, demand remains exceptionally strong due to the sport’s popularity and following among the Haitian immigrant community here. Miami Edison Senior High School is routinely ranked among the top high school boys teams in Miami-Dade, yet non-school youth soccer opportunities are few.