Ashburn Soccer Club Drops the Ball

For more than 100 Ashburn area kids, competitive soccer will not be on the roster this fall after an administrative oversight caused Ashburn Soccer Club to miss a registration deadline for Suburban Friendship League, an organization that schedules games for 475 recreational soccer teams in Northern Virginia. The individuals affected include U-12 through U-14 Ashburn Soccer Club players. 

Royce Brodie, director of Ashburn Soccer Club, has taken the blame for the mistake.

“It’s unfortunate the way things happened, but we are in transition right now and are just trying to pick up the pieces,” Brodie said.

He explained that after his predecessor left the organization in July, the club – which volunteers run for the most part – he had to pick up the ball and run with it and didn’t know what registrations had to be filed. “Things had always just been done before,” he said.

Ashburn Soccer Club parents and coaches want a better explanation.

“The full truth hasn’t been disclosed yet,” said ASC parent Kevin Young. “The way that everything has been handled just makes it seem as though something is being hidden or someone is lying. People are pointing fingers instead of owning up to the entire failure.”

Dissatisfied with Ashburn Soccer Club’s assertion that organizers did not find out until Sept. 3 that the filing deadline had been missed, Young and his wife, Karen, contacted Suburban Friendship League to get to the bottom of the story.

The League’s response included a timeline of events that transpired:

This season we scheduled over 525 teams from about 25 different clubs. All the clubs except Ashburn registered teams and those teams were scheduled. The SFL uses a standardized registration process. The dates are the same each season and are posted on the web site on the Calendar. These are the actions that we took this fall relating to Ashburn:

• In mid-July we sent out the standard Email notifying the clubs that it was time to register teams along with the necessary spread sheets with that needed to be submitted. This Email was sent to the SFL Club Rep., Club Field Coordinator, and Club Referee Coordinator.
• We mailed a registration package to the same 3 individuals and the club address about a week later. The letter and other materials included in this package can be found on the SFL Documents page (http://www.sflsoccer.org/sfldocs.htm).
• On August 4 we received an Email stating that the club had a new SFL Club Rep. The original registration Email was sent back to this individual. This Email contained all the necessary spread sheets for registering the teams.
• On August 6, we sent an Email to the SFL Club Reps. and Club Field Coordinator stating that all registrations that had been received had been processed and that the club should have received the updated information that we processed. In that Email, we noted that if the team registration spread sheet was blank, it meant that we had not received any information.  Ashburn's spread sheet was blank.
• On August 13 an Email was received from the Ashburn field coordinator providing field slots.  This form was about 2 weeks late. This Email was sent to 2 other people in Ashburn. A reply to all was sent back stating that no teams from Ashburn had been registered.
• On August 15, the club is required to submit a Master Player Roster. Ashburn did not submit a Master Player Roster.

At this point, we considered that Ashburn did not want to register any teams.

We scheduled well in excess of 2,100 games this season. It is impossible for us to start this process one week before the season starts. I hope that this explains our process and the actions taken to attempt to obtain registration information. Hopefully, Ashburn will be able to address its problems in the future.

“I understand mistakes are made, but once I saw the timeline I saw that [Brodie] failed miserably at his job,” Young said.

Hamed Panjshiri, a parent and ASC coach, realized that something was wrong several weeks ago when he had not yet received information about his team’s fall season.

“I had to be proactive in finding out information about the team, practices and the fields,” he said. “This was a red flag. Then I started checking with Suburban Friendship League every day because I didn’t see Ashburn Soccer Club listed on the schedule. Three days before the start of the season we found out that the registration deadline was missed.”

Ashburn Soccer parents were notified of the blunder via mass email from Brodie. In the message, Brodie was apologetic and admitted missing the filing deadline. The email also explained that the Club was looking into other possibilities for the U-12 to U-14 kids to play soccer, since Suburban Friendship League would be unable to accommodate Ashburn Soccer’s teams because of the missed deadline.

Parents were upset to have found out the news by e-mail. Several responded to the email by reply and in later interviews.

“Email is an inappropriate way to inform coaches and parents,” Panjshiri said.

Young called the email “impersonal. It’s unfair to send an e-mail and make the coaches and parents have to explain this to the kids,” he said.

Brodie defended his actions calling email the “easiest, most effective and fastest” way to share the news with those affected.

The club’s president, Peter Davies, issued the following statement:

Ashburn Soccer Club, like most youth sports organizations in Loudoun County, is primarily volunteer-based. Having returned as President three months ago after several years away, my observation is that fewer and fewer people are willing to commit their time and talents to an organization with such a direct influence on their children’s lives. Everyone involved is distraught about the impact of this situation and we are actively attempting to find alternatives for these families. Supportive community reaction is important otherwise those few who do volunteer will simply quit, hurting far more children in the end. The reality is that issues such as this should serve as evidence of the need for additional assistance in order to improve any organization that is involved in the growth and development of the youth of the Ashburn area. Before being critical, I hope people will consider what they are doing to support the children of our community.

Young found the message inadequate.

“To me it doesn't matter if it's a volunteer or paid position,” he said. “Have the same integrity in everything you do. If you commit, or are directed to do a task by a certain date – you have an inescapable obligation to complete it by then or tell the ASC family community immediately if you cannot. To wait until the committed date in time – and then tell us that you're not done, due to something that happened hours, days or weeks ago does not give us the chance to solve your problem.”

At least one ASC parent urged forgiveness in a response to some parents who criticized Brodie for the mistake, but others have called for penalties.

“A simple apology is not enough,” said Panjshiri, had convinced several of his players to play soccer in the fall rather than to try out for other sports. “He should be punished.”

Loudoun Soccer, which participates in Suburban Friendship League, is trying to help by absorbing Ashburn Soccer Club’s U-12 teams into their program.

“Loudoun Soccer is happy to help players and families of Ashburn Soccer Club,” said Alan Foy, executive director if Loudoun Soccer. “We welcome them and hope to have a great season.”

Loudoun Soccer will not be able to absorb the U-13 and U-14 teams, however.

“I wish we could fix this and have the kids play,” Panjshiri said. “It’s just not fair to the children.”

“ASC has failed every single one of these kids,” said Young.

Brodie assures parents that this is a mistake that will never happen again.

“We are restructuring the Club and getting it back in order,” he said. “We will not miss the deadline for the spring season.”

But for the kids who are left without soccer this fall, spring is a long way off.