January’s United Soccer Coaches Convention drew more than 7,000 attendees to Chicago, including award winners and their families, presenters, staff and guests.
Of the 4,000 admission-paying attendees (the coaches) more than 1,500 were first-timers.
Among the returnees, many had been coming for decades — in some cases, as far back as the 1960s and 1970s.
The newcomers at 2025’s “world’s largest gathering of soccer coaches” wouldn’t have noticed subtle signs of something awry, like the generic, unlaminated credential badges, or that the shirts attendees traditionally receive upon check-in didn’t sport the United Soccer Coaches logo.
Nor would they have been in on quiet conversations of concern: that Chicago could be the last Convention.
The rumors — that United Soccer Coaches was in financial dire straits and this year’s event happened only because U.S. Soccer (headquartered in Chicago) provided financial support — were indeed facts.
United Soccer Coaches launched in 1941 as the NSCAA (National Soccer Coaches Association of America) — with the mission to: encourage the development of soccer in schools and colleges; better publicize the sport; organize clinics to better teach the sport; enroll more soccer coaches in the NSCAA to better achieve the above goals.
To that it added the honoring of players — All-Americans — coaches, teams and administrators — leading to what’s now more than 10,000 awards annually.
So what went wrong? Why did United Soccer Coaches need to borrow money from U.S. Soccer and its own foundation to host this year’s convention?
How did an organization, which averaged net revenue of $530,000 in the fiscal years 2013-16, based on Form 990 tax filings, end up with losses of $554,300 and $939,400 in 2022 and 2023? (United Soccer Coaches’ Form 990 tax return for the year ending Aug. 31, 2024, is not available.)
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