I have spent the past two hours looking at my whiteboard and mapping out August 1st (soccer) cut off registration date vs. September 1st soccer cut off registration date, and the implications for children born in August with an August registration date for their school system. There’s been a lot of discussion on social media about impact of the move from a birth year registration cut off to a seasonal cut off. It is being considered in order to get the majority of children playing soccer with their classmates and to limit the number of trapped children. Children want to play with their friends/classmates!
An August 1st soccer registration cut off would be better than September 1st because with an August 1st cut off players born in August in schools with August school registration dates could play up to their classmates if they wanted (and the club/league allowed). With a September 1st soccer cut off, these August birthdays in schools with August registration cut offs (there are a lot of them) will not be able to play down with their classmates and will be “trapped.”
As you can see with all the cross-outs and changes in the graphic, this was really confusing for me! To be honest, I am still second guessing myself a bit as this logic with dates does not come easily to me. However, if we are going to make this shift in the Fall of 2026, we have time – let’s review this very carefully and make sure we are making the most practical decision for the majority of players.
Of course, there will always be children playing on a team made up of players who are not in their grade. That is unavoidable. There is not an implementable, perfect solution here that puts everyone playing with their classmates and against the same aged players at tournaments. Plus, some children will start school early or late or move from one state to another with a different registration date.
But if we know the second most popular school registration period after September 1st is August 1st, why would we keep all those August birthdays from playing with their classmates? Instead, let’s give the August birthdays a chance to play up to their school year with an August 1st date.
Again, there will always be children who can’t play with their classmates, but if we are trying to support the majority – let’s pause and review all of this (and someone who’s brain works better than mine on this, please chime in!!!).
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