Costs of Playing Club Soccer and How to Play for Less Money

A couple of days ago I was asking myself how much I have spent in soccer through my life. Definitely it has been a lot of money for youth soccer, and I’m sure that I’m not alone. The youth sports world is a 15.3 billion dollar industry in the United States. In fact, soccer has boomed during the last years in the US and the Youth Soccer Association is now the biggest youth sports organization in the nation.

So, how much does it cost to play soccer for a club? On average, someone can be paying between 2000-5000 dollars a year in membership fees for one player. Those fees normally include uniforms, insurance, referees and coaches salaries, player development, etc. That’s without including registration fees that might be anywhere between 100-500 dollars. Plus, families will have to cover travel costs and equipment to play the game (cleats, protection gear, and others).

Now, this is not always the case and might vary in each country. Families have good reasons to pay for this as it may payback in the future. Some of them even see it as an investment. Soccer teams and coaches don’t want talent to be wasted by any means., and there are always things you can do to pay considerably less or nothing at all from this fees.

The Costs of Soccer broken down

In a study done by Utah State university they found out that the average amount of money families spend on sports a year is 2292 dollars. It included kids from all sports, and starting from 8 years old. That same survey showed that the maximum amount of money spent by families was about 20,000 dollars a year.

This amount can easily be the second biggest expense in a family’s income statement during a year right behind their mortgage. Usually, families pay that huge amount of money because they have, at least, more than 3 children playing at competitive sports, and most of that 20,000 dollars a year are gone through travel expenses, which can add up very quickly if not managed properly.

Today we are analyzing soccer’s case specifically. We’ll break it down into the different expenses that the games involve and how much you can look forward to spend in each one.

Club membership costs

You need to take into consideration that soccer clubs or teams are businesses. As well as any other business they have expenses to cover:

They’ve got to pay the coaches and personnel salaries.
Pay the rent for the training facilities if they don’t own one.
Pay for the referees and league fees.
Buy training equipment that can get to be very expensive. Just for you to have and idea, a moveable soccer goal can cost up to 3000 dollars! Plus, all the other training gear like: cones, soccer balls, uniforms, weights, training rubber bands, etc, can add up very quickly too.
Medical insurance to cover any accident that might happen at games or in the field.

That is why soccer clubs have so many fees, they need to cover those expenses and make a profit in order to sustain themselves and keep existing. Fees can vary a lot depending on the club. There will always be clubs that are super expensive and others that are cheaper.

I would advice you to be careful with everything you spend. If you start buying and buying stuff, costs can add up very fast. I can tell by own experience that, in my youth, I spent too much on things that I actually didn’t need to play soccer. When I was making the research for this article, I got surprised on how much people spent on unnecessary things like personal coaches, and exaggerated monthly fees on clubs.

This are some of the things you have to expect to pay for, relating to club membership costs:

Registration fees from 300-600 dollars or more.
Monthly membership anywhere between 100-200 dollars a month.
Annual tournament participation fees for about 100 dollars.
Personal coaches can charge about 30-50 dollars per week.
Gym memberships

I would like to clarify that, most of the times, you won’t need to include all this expenses in the total costs to play soccer as some of them are unnecessary. For example, the personal trainers. For me, hiring personal soccer trainers is a waste of money considering you are already paying to be at a club with coaches that are training you to become a better player, but I included it because I’ve seen families hire those for their kids. Also gym memberships, for example, might already be included in the monthly fee or teams might do weight training in the soccer field instead and not in a gym.

Equipment

I would say that soccer is one of the cheapest sports to play related to equipment. Mostly, the only things you’ll need are a good pair of soccer cleats, shin guards, goalkeeper gloves if you are goalkeeper, and a soccer ball. You don’t need too many things to play the game in comparison to baseball, hockey, or football for example.

As in club memberships, you can find expensive as well as cheap equipment. Buying soccer gear is not an easy task, even for us, the soccer players. It can be very tricky and you can waste your money easily. You can check my recommended gear page where I refer to what I think is the best value-for-money soccer gear out there.

Here are the prices of regular soccer equipment:

Expect to pay at least 150 to 250 dollars for a good pair of soccer cleats. This are like the tennis racket of a tennis player or the swimsuit of a swimmer. Cleats are the most expensive equipment for soccer, but it is necessary that you buy a good pair in which you can feel very comfortable and confident that they are going to last for at least one or two seasons.

If you are on a low budget, you can always buy low-end cleats that big brands like Nike and Adidas make for about 60-120 dollars. Some of this offer great quality too. Always make your research before buying a pair of cleats to see if they might suit you well. In my recommended soccer cleats section you’ll see my personal favorite cleats ,and you can read some tips on how to buy the best soccer cleat for you.

There are shin guards as cheap as 10 dollars and as expensive as 60 dollars. Basically, 10 dollar shin guards will get the job done very well, but there will always be better ones that offer more protection and comfort. This are the best shin guards out there right now for me.
Goalkeepers will have to pay a little more than field players. Professional goalkeeper gloves can cost anywhere between 80-200 dollars. Of course, there are always semi pro gloves that will work well too for about 40-60 bucks. Also, sometimes goalkeepers might want to buy long sleeve shirts and pants special for goalkeepers which usually cost around 50-60 dollars.
You can buy a good soccer ball for only 40 dollars. That is only if you need one. Probably the team you will train at will have dozens of them. Of course, there are more expensive balls that cost 180 dollars for example (the one used at the world cup), but it is not necessary one of those balls to play good soccer. I talk more in depth on how to choose a soccer ball in my recommended soccer balls section.

Travel

Travel expenses from soccer can add up very quickly if not treated with caution. In “Money’s” article: “How Soccer Bills Devoured This Family’s Budget”, they talk about a couple with four kids playing competitive club soccer and how much they spent on soccer during a year. I will talk later on about this article and what I think about it.

In mentioned article, they talked about how they spent $200o only in one weekend traveling to a soccer tournament. They made two trips, one to a city that was 1o hours away by car and another that was 8 hours away.

I also traveled myself many times to play soccer in other countries like Costa Rica. In that trip I could have easily spent 800 dollars only for myself, without including the expenses from my parents in that trip. Trips to other countries like the United States or El Salvador might have easily been more expensive than that one.

You see, all those travel expenses: Plain tickets, gasoline, car rental, hotels, restaurants and food, insurance, can, in the long run, even be greater than the team’s annual fee or the equipment to play soccer. At least the good thing is that you are traveling, you learn from different cultures, meet new people, go to new places, and that it is always a fun experience to live.

Soccer Camps

If you want your kids to play soccer, but not necessarily on a club, then soccer camps are a great option. You get kids to practice a sport and stay active for a while without committing to spend big amounts of money in competitive club soccer.

Soccer camps can be pricy too. I went to famous Florida Soccer Camp at IMG Academy for three years in a row. Expect to pay at least 3000 dollars for a 2 week camp for the cheapest camp at these facilities. This includes absolutely everything players will need. Housing, three meals a day (menu planned specifically to help student-athletes perform at their best level), elite soccer training facilities (probably the best in North America), professional soccer coaches, trips around florida, etc.

This soccer camp was one of the best experiences in my life. Besides learning a lot to become a better soccer player, I made new friendships with people all around the world. Children and teenagers will love spending time on this or any other soccer camp. Take into consideration IMG academy has the best and most expensive sports camp in the nation. Probably there will be cheaper options near your location.

The Jones Case

Above, I mentioned a “Money’s” article (click the link above to read it) in which they talk about how Steve and Siobhan Jones spent 17,000 dollars in one year of soccer expenses! Don’t get alarmed, first take into consideration that these couple has four boys and they are all playing competitive soccer. If having one child playing soccer is expensive now imagine paying for four! Just crazy.

Each boy pays a monthly fee of about 115 dollars to play for the club. Plus, add all the travel costs of when the kids have tournaments in different places. But, for me, this family has such a big soccer expenses category because they spend too much money in unnecessary things, for example: a coach that gives private classes to the kids for 30 dollars a week. Why would you pay for that if you are already paying for coaches to train your kids to become better soccer players?

Also, they said they spend 1200 dollars a year just in equipment to play. Wow! You know how many top-end soccer cleats you can buy for that? About 6 pairs, and you would still have money remaining for a soccer ball.

Another thing they talked about in this article is that they spent, on a weekend, 2000 dollars in travel costs for one kid that was playing in a city 1o hours away by car. I find it hard to figure out how to spend $2000 dollars on a weekend trip.

I wanted to bring the example of the Jones to illustrate that in this soccer club world, it is very easy to lose control and spend more than you should or need. If you plan your spending correctly you can easily end up spending only a reasonable amount of money playing club soccer.

Benefits of paying the price

So, why do families spend such amount of money on having their kids play for a soccer club? Well, parents say they have different reasons. The first and most obvious one is that they dream their kids become professional soccer players one day. Soccer players earn A LOT of money and parents hope all the money they are spending today will return when they earn millions playing the game.

Other great amount says that they want their children to earn a sports scholarship for college one day. Not having to pay college thanks to a scholarship would make all the thousands of dollars spent for years to play soccer totally worth it. So, we could say some parents see it as an investment.

At the end of the day, playing soccer makes kids happy, and seeing their kids happy and having fun makes their parents be happier and feel satisfied for the sacrifice they are doing for their kids. I wrote an article called “The 20 Benefits of Soccer and How it Changed my life”, you definitely have to check that out and you’ll see why its worth paying the price.

Tips to play for less money

Let me ask you a question: Do you think it makes sense that talented soccer players have to pay to play for club or team? I’ve never seen Messi or Ronaldo pay a penny to play for their teams. It wouldn’t make sense. In fact, it is the opposite, they are paid to be there because the club is benefited with trophies, fans buying their jerseys, buying tickets for the games, sponsorships and others.

So the tip #1 I can give you is train harder to be a better soccer player. Remember this: Talented players don’t pay to play, regular players do.

Not trying to say at all that you or your child will be the next Messi, but definitely standing out from the rest of the players will want coaches to be in their team and can give you an economical advantage.

The last things big clubs want is to waste talent. By any means they want money to stop soccer players from developing their talent in a good soccer club.

To increase the chances of you or your child to be viewed by soccer scouts attend to tryouts of clubs from your country’s national soccer league. In the United States it would be the MLS or the USL. In England it would be the Premiere League or The Championship for example.

It is important that you recognize the difference between a private local soccer club and a club that plays in the national soccer league. The first ones are teams that play in local leagues, and after you reach a certain age it is hard to keep developing your soccer career if it is not in your college’s soccer team or something similar.

In a national soccer league team, for example let’s say LA Galaxy or Liverpool FC, their pure and final intentions is to create talented professional soccer players and nothing else. To make them play one day for the big team or sell them for millions of dollars. In order to achieve this they will scout players (the younger the better), no matter their economic status, and they will cover all the expenses of absolutely everything they need to develop as soccer players. As a seed, they will help that kid grow until it is a big tree.

Take Lionel Messi for example. He was a kid from a low-class family in Argentina and FC Barcelona moved him and all his family to Barcelona, paying for all their expenses, to help create and develop what, for many people, today is one of the best players in history.

However, I understand there will be times it is hard to play in any of these teams, and kids will need to keep playing in private local clubs to keep developing their talents.

In this cases, plan your budget for soccer wisely and respect it.

As in the example of the Jones, you saw how easy it is to spend more money than you should in soccer equipment, traveling expenses and others. Always register all your expenses so you can have an idea of how much money you are dedicating to soccer.

My advice

I wouldn’t recommend at all for parents to pay for the kids to play soccer hoping that one day they will earn a scholarship for college or that they will become professional soccer players one day. Hopefully they will, but this is not the case most of the times. Soccer is the sport that is played the most around the world. There are millions of kids aspiring for the same goals and working hard every single day to achieve it.

If you want your kids to play soccer, do it because you really want them to be happy, to have fun and develop as a person. Soccer can offer a lot of great things besides just a scholarship or a good salary. Soccer teaches you values, how to work in a team and helps you become a more complete person overall.

Another important thing you should take into account is that if soccer is meant to be for you or your child it will happen no matter how much money you have to spend. Most of the best soccer players in the world come from very poor communities in their countries in which they didn’t have half of the things they have today to develop their talents. At any moment, money is something that should stop you from playing soccer or becoming a professional one day.

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