Dear Washington Youth Soccer Parents and Athletes -

On July 26, 2009, House Bill 1824 - also known as the Zackery Lystedt Law - becomes effective. The law mandates that ALL players and parent(s)/guardians sign and return an informed consent form relating to the nature and risk of concussion or head injury. This information sheet shall include the signs and symptoms of concussion/brain injury. The new law is an important step in ensuring player safety and mitigating head injuries.

In order to participate in practices after July 26th, 2009 and be eligible for the 2009/2010 soccer season, you will need to review and electronically sign the consent form. Until the consent form is signed, players will not be allowed to practice or play. Follow the instructions below to display and sign your consent form:

1. Click this link to go to the member log in area of your club's web site - Go to my club

2. Enter your user name and password for your member account.

3. A notice will display in your member account. Read the instructions and click the READ NOW link. Both parents and athletes need to read the information and electronically “sign” this consent form.

After completing the steps outlined above Washington Youth Soccer will have a permanent record that you have done so for this playing season and you are now eligible to practice and play.

To read more information on the new concussion law visit the new concussion education section of the Washington Youth Soccer website.

If you have any questions, please contact Elizabeth Flannery or Amy Wallsmith at the Washington Youth Soccer office at 1.877.424.4318.

Information about LPT’s

On Monday, May 11th, Washington Youth Soccer announced the restructuring of our former Premier League and the replacement of the League Placement Tournament (LPT) with a new team placement process. To date the response from our membership has been overwhelmingly positive.

Whenever change is made there are always lots of questions. As district and association administrators you may be receiving a number of questions from your membership. I would like to share the answers to the most common questions so that you have the correct information to respond.

Key factors as to why we made this decision:

1. The Premier League has been using the same LPT system for team placement for at least 20 years. While it use to be a successful means to place competitive teams, over the years we have found that it doesn’t always create the most competitive divisions of play. From our studies of the past several years, teams frequently load up guest players on their LPT rosters to qualify. Once the LPT’s are over these teams often drop those guest players or the players move to other teams so the team that is actually competing in the Premier League often times is not the same high level team that qualified at the LPT’s for that spot.

2. Over the past few years our studies of the Premier League data has shown a continued drop in teams participating in the Premier League. Over the past three years the league is down by 100 teams. While our player registrations were going up each year we knew that this drop was not due to lack of teams or players. After reviewing all the data and facts we gathered from the LPT, the Premier League as well as our participating membership, it was clear that we needed to find a way to improve the Premier Program so it once again met the needs of Washington’s highest competitive players.

3. Another consideration we had with the LPT was the financial impact it had on our membership’s families. In this current economy we have many families struggling to make ends meet. Many families are having to make some very hard choices on what things they have to cut out of their lives. We did not want their children to have to give up soccer because of the expense. The LPT itself cost $400.00 per team. This barely covered the expenses for running the event. Each team also had to cover the cost of transportation to and from the event for at least two and sometimes three weekends. There were hotel and food expenses. Each team ends up spending thousands of dollars just to attend the LPT each year. Replacing the LPT with a new process will save each family a considerable amount of money that they can now use on other things they need to support their families.

How did we make this decision?

Washington Youth Soccer formed a committee of volunteers that have worked with and participated in the Premier League. In addition, the committee consists of other volunteers who have administered other leagues and programs within Washington Youth Soccer. The committee reviewed all the issues and data collected on the Premier League and LPT’s over several years. The decision of the committee to replace the LPT with a new process was made after very careful consideration of all facts and data.

Why now?

This past weekend Washington Youth Soccer passed a new set of bylaws with our new constitutional convention. The new structure of our organization enables us to address issues and changes in a more timely and efficient manner. Under the previous bylaws, changes took up to a year or more to implement. The Committee handling the Premier League changes had to wait to see if the Washington Youth Soccer Council approved the new bylaws and constitution before they could move forward with the improvements to the Premier League.

The most common question Washington Youth Soccer has been receiving from the membership so far has been from the teams that participated in the Premier League last year and are planning on returning this year to the new State League. Their primary concern is “will we lose our division 1, 2 or 3 league position?”. The answer is NO. So long as returning teams meet the eight (8) returning player requirement they would return to their division of play.

Within the next two weeks the committee will publish more information on the team placement process. Every team that applies to participate in the new State League will be placed within a competitive division of play with like competition. Washington Youth Soccer is working hard to provide a top rate competitive state wide league where teams can not only develop their skills to the highest point possible but do so while still having fun.