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Chivas USA are gone. There's going to be, at best, a "transition period" to the next stage.
The Academy, one of the best features about the club in recent years, will surely remain in existence, right?
Nope.
During a conference call on Monday, MLS Commissioner Don Garber told reporters that Chivas USA's Academy would close in June 2015, or after the conclusion of the current USSDA season.
Garber says Chivas USA’s academy will close "after June of 2015… we will work internally to find opportunities for those players"
— Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) October 27, 2014
Here's my own gut reaction to that news, which was admittedly like five minutes before I wrote this:
And the Chivas USA Academy is closing. Like, WTF? A whole generation of prospects flushed down the toilet.
— Alicia Rodriguez (@soccermusings) October 27, 2014
It costs money to run an academy, I know that. And it's very, very clear that the new owners of the club want an absolute break from everything Chivas USA, so as to not get failure cooties.
But this seems like beyond a foolish decision. Way to set the prospect calendar back to square one, everybody. Maybe LA2 will have a star Homegrown player in 2020, when the rest of the league have teams full of productive HGs.
What do you think? Leave a comment below!