While it consists mainly of recommendations rather than hard-and-fast rules, the Elite Clubs National League have produced an extensive Member Club Standards and Guidelines document that should help establish the organization’s purpose beyond simply forming a competitive league.

ECNL consists of 40 clubs (click here to see all participating clubs) currently playing their season at age groups U15, U16 and U17, with the matches taking place at five separate events. The first venue was the Eclipse Challenge Cup in suburban Chicago in August, and many member clubs will be at the Final 4 Showcase in College Station, Texas, in early December, and the Disney Showcase in Orlando just after Christmas.

ECNL president Christian Lavers, Director of the US Soccer Development Academy Program at FC Milwaukee, said the document represents the intent of the league’s directors of coaching to create an ideal playing and developmental environment for young players.

“This started as an internal document. We asked for the opinion and perspective of various coaches of national teams and professional teams in WPS, which they were kind enough to give,” he said. “We made modifications based on that and then released this to our members last week as suggestions for player development.”

The key word here is “suggestions,” but Lavers doesn’t think that will reduce the effectiveness of the policies.

“We understand we aren’t the governing body of soccer. We have no delusions about that, but it represents some of the best thoughts of people involved on a daily basis with players and coaching,” Lavers said. “We are not in a position to come out and mandate and say this is absolutely what we have to do, but we provided the ability for people to share their perspectives on player development. This we hope will raise the bar for expectations on performance of our clubs, and put a little pressure on the clubs to meet those standards. It will all be public. We are not about putting punishments on clubs but we’re looking for cooperative relationships to say ‘Here’s what we’re doing to make things better. Here’s what top coaches say we can do to improve the training environment and let’s try to get there together.’”

The document includes standards for participation and communication, administration and a set of technical guidelines that perhaps will be of most interest to those hoping ECNL can make a difference in raising the quality of the girls’ game. The U.S. Soccer Federation, which began the Development Academy on the boys’ side and has similar guidelines, only with a more direct enforcement mechanism, declined to do the same on the girls’ side, prompting the ECNL member clubs to begin this effort.

Among the features of the technical guidelines are:

• Encouraging each member club to establish a “standardized, developmentally appropriate training curriculum.”
• Encouraging each member club “to provide regular opportunities for top players at younger age groups to train with older players."
• Encouraging the preparation of technical reports for each team and player in ECNL.

ECNL vice president and Ohio Elite Director of Girls’ Coaching Doug Bracken said what that will look like and how it will be shared is something of an evolving picture.

“We’re looking at some good examples for everybody of what a technical report really is. We want to build some expectations there,” he said “That’s where we can really help each other by looking at those things. We want to get some benchmarks there from our clubs, to see from their programming and establish that this is how we do it and why it works. Once that is in place then we can start a league-wide technical report – where as a league we point out that these are some of the things where we have deficiencies and where we are doing well. You always hear our youth national team coaches say 'We weren’t as technical' as the teams they play overseas.”  We have some idea from the Academy on the boys side' where they’ve been pushing clubs for technical reporting and developing curriculum for younger ages.”

Other items in the document include codes of conduct for players and coaches, staffing recommendations for clubs in matches and training, a suggestion that team head coaches should all be pursuing a USSF “C” license or higher, recommendations about training frequency (three times a week), a call for two seasonal breaks per year and an avoidance of events with more than one match played per day.

Lavers, who said the organization continues to get new requests for membership, is optimistic as ECNL moves farther into its first season.

“We’ve received a lot of good feedback from clubs and we’re excited to have this information and the guidelines,” he said. “I’m not naïve enough to think every club in our league will do everything within our standards, but I do think and expect most clubs will do most of the things. As we move forward and the league grows in size and credibility, more and more clubs will be on board with these standards and our philosophy is a rising tide raises all the ships. Everybody wins in the long run.”