re: This is what happens when leagues compete instead of clubs

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It takes a mix of both, but no one believes the USSF is serious about youth development until pay to play is gone.

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The evidence indicates you need a guiding light from the FA, but relying on the clubs to produce youth players by themselves is literally an idea from the 1980s. It doesn't work like that anymore and we all know it doesn't. We want pro/rel to punish the investors who sit on their arse, yes, but nothing inherent about pro/rel produces top quality talent. The USSF could take the clubs out of the equation completely and subsidize development, but I don't see anyone calling for that. Why is that? Why are we decentralizing talent development when evidence indicates, in the French and German models, that it requires centralization?

We won't ever achieve the Spanish model, and the Spanish model would only works because the Spanish FA decided that playing the possession based game is the only way Spain could compete.

But let's keep idealizing the pro/rel model as a salve for all our issues.