MN Thunder Academy and Shattuck St. Mary’s turned down for USSF Developmental Academy

As reported here several weeks ago, John Hackworth, director of the United States Soccer Federations Developmental Academy was in town conducting interviews with the Minnesota Thunder Academy and Shattuck Academy as both teams applied to become members of the program that features high level competition for U-16 and U-18 boys.

Inside Minnesota Soccer learned on Wednesday that  Manny Lagos, President of the Minnesota Thunder, was contacted Tuesday evening by John Hackworth, and informed that both the Minnesota Thunder Academy and Shattuck Academy were rejected for acceptance into the USSF youth development program. Preliminary reports are saying from those in contact with MTA that the Developmental Academy turned down the two clubs because of excessive travel costs for other teams already in the league and the realignment of divisions was also too costly for the league as whole.

IMS is attempting to find USSF documents concerning the rules of the Developmental Academies to see if there is a bylaw related to not discriminating against clubs for reasons of distance.  IMS will try to get a statement from USSF as well as Manny Lagos and Tim Carter who is the director of soccer programs at Shattuck St. Mary’s.

IMS will continue to follow this story.