If the U.S. is to strengthen its youth development to become more competitive in global men’s soccer, it needs to widen the network of free-to-play soccer academies run by the country’s professional clubs. That’s the verdict of Jason Davis, the cohost of Morning Kickaround, a popular podcast about the American game.

“In my mind, the only way to get to where we want to be with soccer […] is to say: ‘Give more kids access to higher-level coaching environments and training environments,’” Davis told a recent episode of the show. “It’ll never be perfect; there will always be kids left out. But the only way to do it in my mind is for there to be more - many, many, many, many, many, many more - professional soccer teams with academies. That’s it. That’s the way.”

Davis’s comments followed the U.S. national team’s (USMNT) elimination from the 2026 men’s World Cup, as the Stars and Stripes again failed to mount a deep run into the tournament’s latter stages. Despite playing on home soil this summer, and investing in a high-profile head coach from overseas, the USMNT exited in the round of 16 for the fourth time in the last five men’s World Cups. The team’s 4-1 knockout-stage defeat to Belgium maintained their record of only one quarterfinal appearance since 1930.

Donovan fans flames of ‘pay-to-play’ debate

Davis’s remarks on the development of U.S. talent also came amid intense debate in the country about the impact of the ‘pay-to-play’ system prevalent in American youth soccer, with households forced to foot significant bills to pay for training facilities and coaches, soccer equipment, travel, and other expenses. Although further fuelled by the USMNT’s World Cup thumping by Belgium two weeks ago, the discussion had already gained traction earlier this month after comments by the former USMNT star Landon Donovan, who hit out at the costs facing American families whose children play organized soccer.

Donovan, a former Premier League player capped 157 times by the U.S., has complained that the country is “missing out” on a sizeable talent pool of potential players who grow up in households that cannot meet the growing costs of the grassroots game.

Writing in The Athletic, the soccer journalist Henry Burnell agrees that, as things stand in the U.S., becoming a professional soccer player “requires some degree of privilege”. “The U.S., to be clear, is far from the only country where families pay for their kids to play soccer,” Bushnell adds. “But the costs are greater here than anywhere else.”

How much does ‘pay-to-play’ youth soccer cost in the U.S.?

Per a recent report by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, the price of participation in U.S. youth sport continues to place a greater and greater strain on household budgets, rising by 46% since 2019. In soccer, according to this resource for the parents of kids in soccer, involvement in the youth game at a regular competitive level can cost up to $6,000 a year - before travel expenses. Meanwhile, on elite pathways outside of the U.S.’s limited number of free-to-play academies, that annual bill can rise to $15,000-plus.

At present, all 27 of the U.S. clubs in Major League Soccer (MLS) - the country’s elite professional men’s division, which also includes three Canadian teams - offer free academies for up-and-coming players. However, this is not the norm in the United States Soccer League (USL), the U.S.’s pyramid of lower divisions; not even in the USL Championship, the country’s fully professional second tier.

In an article for Forbes, the soccer writer Beau Dure notes that the influence of MLS’s network of youth setups will, without significant backup from outside the league, continue to be outstripped by that of the many free-to-play academies in other, smaller nations. “Having 27 MLS clubs in a country the size of the United States […] doesn’t have the same impact as having more than 90 professional clubs and some semi-professional clubs with academies in a country the size of England,” Dure points out, for example.

For clubs outside the U.S.’s top flight, Davis acknowledges, funding free-to-play youth development is extremely challenging, at least in the short term. “The business of lower-division soccer is tough enough, and then we’re going to start an academy…?” he told Morning Kickaround. “Where does the money come from to pay for all of the infrastructure we need for an academy? If it’s not from the parents - if you’re taking the payment element away from the parents, it’s got to go somewhere.”

But in the longer term, Davis argues, youth setups can begin to generate the money needed to subsidize such initiatives in the U.S. “Let’s get academies to develop more players, and when they sell those players, or when they get training compensation solidarity payments, then that is money into the system […],” he says.

What exactly has Landon Donovan said about ‘pay-to-play’?

In an appearance on the Late Run podcast at the beginning of July, Donovan recalled his family’s struggles to pay for his early forays into organized youth soccer. The 44-year-old, a player frequently identified as the USMNT’s greatest ever, says there was “zero chance” his single mother could have afforded his childhood soccer expenses had another person - whom he did not identify - not stepped in to foot the bill.

“My mom made $34,000 a year as a single mom raising three kids,” Donovan said. “She couldn’t pay $4,000 for me to play club soccer - are you kidding? She couldn’t pay $400. So I would have had zero chance. But somebody let me on the team and paid for me - otherwise, I couldn’t have. That’s not a good system to create good players. How do you create good players by doing that? You can’t.”

Speaking this week on Unfiltered Soccer, a show he hosts with fellow ex-U.S. international Tim Howard, Donovan added that he does not advocate abolishing ‘pay-to-play’ altogether in America. However, the former forward insisted that the system must be “way more affordable”.

“We’re missing out on this massive population of our country, and we need to make that net way, way, way bigger […],” Donovan said. “Somebody has to pay for soccer. The problem is, all these youth clubs now are grinding every penny out of every family. I have kids: I can afford to pay for it. My kid has four training jerseys. Why the hell do they need four?”

Donovan continued: “It can be way more affordable. Instead of five grand a year, maybe it’s 500 a year. People can say, ‘OK, that’s a decision I can make for my kid to play soccer.’ And that seems fair and reasonable.”

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