CFBAL Spring News

Carrollton Farmers Branch Academy League (CFBAL) and the United Academy League (UAL) have come to a mutual agreement to combine leagues starting in the Spring of 2015. The expanded United Academy League will be directed and scheduled by Nicole James. Nicole James has built and managed the CFBAL since its inception and has grown the league exponentially due to her attention to detail, outstanding customer service and central focus on creating an academy league that’s driven to be the best environment for youth soccer players to develop and grow.

With this agreement we will be join the field resources of Carrollton and Farmers Branch with those of Frisco, Plano, Allen and McKinney.
This is a very exciting development for all of those who participated in CFBAL and UAL in the past, as this new league will open up new opportunities for teams to play games versus other evenly matched opponents as well it opens up new home field opportunities for teams throughout these areas and nearby cities.
From an administration perspective, Nicole James will direct the new UAL league registration and all scheduling. Each member association’s referee assignor will be assigning the referees for the games on their fields. The UAL teams will no longer pay the referee fee on the fields; the associations will be paying the referees directly.

In closing, we will be opening registration on Monday, November 24th!! We look forward to serving all of the CFBAL and United Academy League teams in this new United Academy League in 2015!

If you have any questions please feel free to send me an email, nicolej@hsp-tech.com

Thank you,
Nicole James

Will this new UAL post scores or no?

ALL scores for EACH division will be posted from now on.

Congrats CFBAL!!

CFBSA wrote:Carrollton Farmers Branch Academy League (CFBAL) and the United Academy League (UAL) have come to a mutual agreement to combine leagues starting in the Spring of 2015.  The expanded United Academy League will be directed and scheduled by Nicole James.  Nicole James has built and managed the CFBAL since its inception and has grown the league exponentially due to her attention to detail, outstanding customer service and central focus on creating an academy league that’s driven to be the best environment for youth soccer players to develop and grow.

With this agreement we will be join the field resources of Carrollton and Farmers Branch with those of Frisco, Plano, Allen and McKinney.
This is a very exciting development for all of those who participated in CFBAL and UAL in the past, as this new league will open up new opportunities for teams to play games versus other evenly matched opponents as well it opens up new home field opportunities for teams throughout these areas and nearby cities.
From an administration perspective, Nicole James will direct the new UAL league registration and all scheduling.  Each member association’s referee assignor will be assigning the referees for the games on their fields.  The UAL teams will no longer pay the referee fee on the fields; the associations will be paying the referees directly.

In closing, we will be opening registration on Monday, November 24th!!  We look forward to serving all of the CFBAL and United Academy League teams in this new United Academy League in 2015!

If you have any questions please feel free to send me an email, nicolej@hsp-tech.com

Thank you,
Nicole James

Wow - this is fantastic news! This will help bring in additional teams that reside in Denton & Collin counties.  Only request now is to increase the number of league games played from 8 to 10.  Thank you Nicole!

Keep everything cfbal... $ hitcan everything UAL...horrible league... will like playing close to home every now and then.

Congrats CFBAL on shutting down a competitor.

CFBAL didn't shut anyone down - it was the best decision for each league.  I will direct and schedule the new league and provide the same service as I did before - I promise.

No one better to run the show! With Nicole at the helm this will be a very successful union. Congrats Nicole! Looking forward to hearing great things.

CFBSA wrote:CFBAL didn't shut anyone down - it was the best decision for each league.  I will direct and schedule the new league and provide the same service as I did before - I promise.

Best move UAL has ever made

Congrats Nicole

This is fantastic news! Looking forward to a great spring season!

Just curious. Why did not CFBAL want to pay referee on field?
I do refereeing for PPL, Classic and occasional UAL (when nothing else going on). All games paid on field.
Never like to wait for a check.

BTW, what is the referee pay rate in CFBAL?

After merged, is it going to be UAL or CFBAL pay rate for referee if they are different?

Given the level of officiating in CFBAL I am not sure they pay their referee's at all.  By FAR the most consistently poor officiating of any league any of my 3 kids have been in.  I have been doing the academy / select thing for 7 years now.  Not a lifetime but not a newbie either.

I have never seen center refs so often and so consistently (game after game) ignore their AR's.  Offside calls, fouls, out of bounds constantly ignored or waved off by the center.  The first half of last season was terrible with parents getting upset and yelling at the center to look at his AR.  By the second half it got better as the AR's quit making calls all together and just deferred to the center and mirrored whatever they called.  We made the assumption that the centers told the AR’s just to stop calling anything and let them run the show, which most did without moving from the center circle.

These refs also did not seem to understand the level of the players that they were calling.  While I understand it is 06's, CFBAL had the best of the best last season and for a ref to get down on one knee and have a 3 minute explanation to a goalie as to why stepping out of the box was a handball when there is 5 minutes left in a 1-0 game is ridiculous.  That is something you do at a U5 rec league or the silver or bronze division.

In the future I would like the refs to understand the level that they are calling and know that the Platinum division is going to be more aggressive, faster and physical then the other divisions and to call it accordingly.

Nicole runs a great league, the level of organization and communication is top notch, but the ref development is completely lacking.  I have a son that played in Prime Time last season and saw on many occasions ref’s getting critiques after games by the head of officials from Prime Time.   I am in no way endorsing Prime Time, but their officiating was some of the best that I have encountered in any league and I think it is due to their development in this area.

02B06G08B_Dad wrote:I have a son that played in Prime Time last season and saw on many occasions ref’s getting critiques after games by the head of officials from Prime Time.   I am in no way endorsing Prime Time, but their officiating was some of the best that I have encountered in any league and I think it is due to their development in this area.

It was a good argument until you said that PrimeTime had some of the best officiating.

02B06G08B_Dad wrote:Given the level of officiating in CFBAL I am not sure they pay their referee's at all.  By FAR the most consistently poor officiating of any league any of my 3 kids have been in.  I have been doing the academy / select thing for 7 years now.  Not a lifetime but not a newbie either.

I have never seen center refs so often and so consistently (game after game) ignore their AR's.  Offside calls, fouls, out of bounds constantly ignored or waved off by the center.  The first half of last season was terrible with parents getting upset and yelling at the center to look at his AR.  By the second half it got better as the AR's quit making calls all together and just deferred to the center and mirrored whatever they called.  We made the assumption that the centers told the AR’s just to stop calling anything and let them run the show, which most did without moving from the center circle.

These refs also did not seem to understand the level of the players that they were calling.  While I understand it is 06's, CFBAL had the best of the best last season and for a ref to get down on one knee and have a 3 minute explanation to a goalie as to why stepping out of the box was a handball when there is 5 minutes left in a 1-0 game is ridiculous.  That is something you do at a U5 rec league or the silver or bronze division.

Not surprised. I don't think CFBAL has a good pool of referees. Most experienced and good referees are in ECNL, Pre-academy, Classic and PPL. Once I did one game for U-9 kids since no other older kids games were going on that day, a couple of parents came to thank me to control the game very well after game. They told me they wished to have me every game. In that game, I issued a yellow and the kids said this was the first yellow for their team. Com'n, that was the second to last game of the season.

Sho'nuff wrote:

02B06G08B_Dad wrote:I have a son that played in Prime Time last season and saw on many occasions ref’s getting critiques after games by the head of officials from Prime Time.   I am in no way endorsing Prime Time, but their officiating was some of the best that I have encountered in any league and I think it is due to their development in this area.

It was a good argument until you said that PrimeTime had some of the best officiating.  

I knew I would get flak for the PrimeTime comment... My experience there was with an 08 league. I just liked the critique and continued development that they seemed to be doing.

02B - I know what game your speaking about and yes - I would have made a comment as well, but to bash ALL of my referees - OUCH that hurt!  I'm not going on this forum to tell you we had the BEST officiating in North Texas as that would be way off base.  With 225 teams, creating over 900 games - the assignor did the best with what was available.  I hope to see a difference this upcoming season.  Know I'm not one to have a head buried in the sand

Nicole - sorry, I am not running you down. You run a great ship, you are active with this community and I think that is awesome, but there was not a single game I walked away from this season (win or lose) that I didn't think that the refs were just horrible. Maybe it was just (bad) luck of the draw and the 8 games we played are a very small sampling of the 900 games that you organized.

No league is perfect, no ref or coach or parent is perfect, I am an assistant on a U13 boys team in PPL-1 and have seen plenty of good and bad officiating and unreasonable parents and coaches, I might have even been one of them a time or two. I have been upset with calls only to review the film and realize that I was wrong. I am also one of the few coaches (assistant) that will go up to a ref after a well officiated game and tell him he did a good job.

For the 06G you have the hard part done, you have all the best teams in town in one league. If I didn't care I wouldn't say anything but I want to see this hold together until Select. It is a great group of well matched teams that all continue to get better.