The World Cup is coming, but can kids still get a game?

The World Cup is coming to the United States. There’s excitement building. Participation is high. Kids are playing everywhere. Soccer is more visible than it has ever been.

But there’s another reality sitting just below the surface.

For many families, getting into the game has never been harder.

In a recent Guardian Football Weekly discussion, Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning spoke with Alexander Abnos, senior editor at Guardian US, and Leander Schaerlaeckens, author of The Long Game, about where soccer really stands in America today. What they described should give all of us pause.

The Long Game by Leander Schaerlaeckens is a deep dive into soccer in the United States.

As Schaerlaeckens put it: “Youth soccer is prohibitively expensive… it’s really, really hard for a lot of families to afford it.”

That’s the starting point. And it cuts directly against everything the game is supposed to represent.

A game that was meant to be simple

For years, soccer in the United States has been treated almost as a stage of growing up. Something you pass through rather than something you build a life around.

Schaerlaeckens captured that perfectly: “Soccer has for too long been a rite of passage of American childhood… something that you would ditch and move on from once you became a teenager.”

That line says a lot. But the bigger issue comes when families choose not to move on. When kids want to keep playing. When soccer starts to matter.

Because that’s the moment when the cost appears.

The price of staying in the game

We still talk about soccer as if it’s simple and accessible. A ball, a bit of space, and off you go. But that’s just not how the system works anymore.

As Schaerlaeckens explained: “Like all youth sports in America, it’s been privatized. It’s been commercialized… unless you’re in an MLS academy, it’s going to cost you thousands of dollars a year.”

That’s not a small shift. It changes the nature of the game itself. Once money becomes the gateway, access is no longer equal. And once access is uneven, everything else follows.

The kids we never see

This is where the real cost shows up. Schaerlaeckens put it simply: “That’s  frozen out an awful lot of talent over the years.” This isn’t just about participation numbers. It’s about lost potential. Children who never even get the chance to be seen.

It’s very easy to think of this as a side effect. Something unfortunate but unavoidable. It’s not. This is the system working exactly as it has been built to work.

Alexander Abnos sees it as something much bigger now: “If you think that FIFA are bad at extracting the most amount of money possible out of the game of soccer in the United States, you have to kind of stand in awe of all of the various youth soccer associations that dot the landscape because it’s really, really something, the sort of system that they’ve built up.”

That’s the point.

This isn’t loose or informal. It’s organised. It’s structured. It has been built over time and it now shapes who can stay in the game. And once that becomes the filter, the outcome becomes predictable. Some kids progress. Some do find a way through. And many more fall away before they have even begun.

Where families fit in

And yet, in the middle of all of this, there was a quieter point in the conversation that is more important than anything else. Schaerlaeckens talked about what real grassroots development actually requires: “You need fathers who can volunteer and mothers who understand the sport.” It shifts the focus completely. Because soccer doesn’t start in academies. It starts at home.

It starts with parents and kids kicking a ball around without pressure. It starts with time, encouragement, and shared experience. It starts long before any pathway or system takes over.

When the structure of the game pulls families away from that starting point, something fundamental is lost. Not just players, but the connection between families and the game itself.

As Skye Eddy, Founder at Soccer Parenting in the US, puts it, “Parents are an essential stakeholder in the youth soccer experience of a player, and they need to be adequately supported and resourced.”

The World Cup moment

This is why the World Cup matters. Not just the event, but the moment. It’s a great chance to inspire the next generation. But inspiration on its own isn’t enough. If the only way forward costs thousands of dollars a year, then we’ve not solved anything and have simply raised expectations and closed the door.

The good news

It would be easy to leave it there. To say that the system is what it is. But there are people working to change it.

Skye Eddy continues, “We work every day to help create healthier, more supportive environments around young athletes. At Soccer Parenting we provide education, resources, and tools that help parents and coaches better understand how to create environments where players feel they belong and are inspired.”

These voices are helping families feel more informed, more confident, and better equipped to navigate what can often feel like a complex and expensive system.

They are a positive force in the American game at exactly the right moment.

A different way

At Family F.C., we say that learning soccer skills should not depend on fees, travel teams, or early selection. That parents and children should be able to enjoy the game together without pressure or cost.

That’s why the Family F.C. app exists. To give all families a way back into the game on their own terms. Because before any pathway, before any academy, there should always be a simple place to start.

A small note of optimism

There was some optimism in the Guardian’s podcast discussion. As Abnos said: “All of this stuff is changing in a generally positive direction.”

That matters. Change is happening. But it’s slow. It’s uneven. And it won’t happen on its own.

Final thoughts

The World Cup will arrive. Stadiums will fill. Kids will be inspired. But the warnings are there for all to see.

Here at Family F.C. we’re saying, if the game keeps getting bigger, but fewer families can take part, something is going in the wrong direction.

The real question is,  what happens next? Will those kids find a way into the game? Or will they find the door closed before they even begin?

That’s the question that still needs answering.