Last January, at our Annual General Meeting, Premier's status and continued survival was our biggest concern and we spent a lot of time discussing various options.  With the rise of soccer in general, our League has grown (100% from 2005 to 2010).  (The turf fields help too--keep thanking the schools!)  We've have seen a trend during this that ultimately caused Premier to drop to four teams. More and more teams and players have moved to Club, primarily from Premier.  This downward push of players has risen the overall level in Club to a degree it's pushed some otherwise Club level players to Rec.  Which in turn hurts Recreation with a similar rise in overall level.  
 
To address this, we've made a few changes.  To maintain a high level of USASA compliant style of play we'll host, or be involved in, 4 tournaments a year:  a Spring and Fall Select Tournament (thanks Chris!  :), the KS Cup Regionals which will be returning to Lawrence the first weekend of June and finally Sporting KC will be hosting a Champions tournament in June and July, with the final being played at Livestrong Park.  These tournaments are intended to bolster the league's play level at a Regional level, promote inter-league play in Kansas, and allow for National Open and Over 30 teams to exist in LASL but not to compete with our seasonal play--some teams will hopefully be pulled from several teams in a Division.  IE, Premier quality teams that exist outside of our normal formats.
 
Our Divisions will also play a tournament at the end of the season (3 mini-games and a final), with an 8 game season leading up to that.

Recreation will have a rule change to address and decrease physicality of play.  Details are still being worked out.  

Another change will be our league structure.  Club will be renamed (back) to Open and will be split into 2 Divisions, an A (upper tier), a B (lower tier), and hopefully eventually a C, to include all teams above Recreation.  The Rules for Club will be used in the new Open League (i.e. no slide tackling etc.).  The goal is to have a system that can grow and still stay competitive.  Club has gotten really, really good in the last few years and it's been fun.  As of late Premier players have left their Division and joined Club.  This is awesome--a lot have chosen to play for two teams, but that gets back to the downward motion we're seeing.  With an A and B Division, which will include mostly intra-Division but some inter-Division play (split 6 intra/2 inter for a total of 8 games), we hope we can have a system that stays competitive and engaging for everyone.  All former Premier teams will be automatically added to Division A while any teams coming up from Recreation will be automatically added Division B.  Old Club teams will be split based on their standings at the end of last season.  At the end of this season there will be an automatic promotion/relegation of the top and bottom 1 or 2 teams within Open (depending on total number of teams).  There will be no automatic promotion/relegation between Open and Recreation but any team wishing to do so may.
 
The Open league as a whole will continue to be coordinated by Andy Bentley while an A and B Division Coordinator (Alex Karam and Andy Bentley, respectively) will be put in place to liaise with captains and maintain their divisions.
 
We hope that this has the desired effect in promoting an Open league that is both competitive and fun for all.  WE would love to hear your feedback on this proposal.   If you have any strong views, please let us know, this is a players league.  Our goal is to have competitive games at all levels in our league.


Thanks,