Kids Soccer in JAX

I went to look for where my kids could play soccer in Jacksonville, but I realized the main website that I was led to has not been updated recently, as can be seen by the link out to Arlington FC's website (now the property of China, it seems). Let's take a look at the listed leagues and how they've changed. I am searching for a league for a girl age 11, so I'm skipping some. And I'm focusing on soccer, not mixed sports camps.

Antilleans Football Club
This one seems to exist. Established in 2002, it's a non-profit that has one free event per year and one that costs $25, if I'm reading the website correctly. However, the website is not terribly current. I would not say this is a league or a club, but more of a camp. When you click on all the Sponsors menu items, there are none, so I assume there's very little going on here.

Arlington Futbol Club

Defunct. The website is not in English, and it's probably not about soccer. It might be about clothing or travel or sunglasses, but not about youth soccer in America. And I'm sure it's not an organization of any sort. Therefore, I would say that less than very little is going on here.

Beaches Soccer League
When you navigate to Jacksonville Beach Sports website, no soccer is listed. The website does exist, but it only has football, baseball, softball, tennis, golf, swim, and cheerleading. It got me to thinking about making golf more exciting with cheerleaders, but there was no soccer listed.

Beaches Soccer League 2
There's a second listing for the same league with the same link. The only difference is a BASL emblem.

Coastal Kicks Soccer League
Looks like 10 practices and 10 games for $190, but they may not play each week...the website is not definitive. There's a working website that lists what's actually happening, so good job there. The site claims the training sessions are with "professional, experienced and certified adult soccer coaches and trainers." I am not sure if the games are coached by these same pros or not. $9.50 per session/game.

Crosswater Community Church Upward Sports Soccer
The link was just to the church. I had to search through the church website to find the sports link, which had very little information and a broken link to Upward Sports. Claims to be $100, but I'm not sure for what. I messed around and found that it seems to be 7 weeks for the price. Not sure if there's a weekly practice or not. If it's just games, then it's $14 per game. If it included practice, then it's $7 per.


First Baptist Church Flag Soccer
Link goes to church site. Seems like another promotional tool for the church. Nothing about leagues could be found on the website linked, but it may exist. I am also not sure what flag soccer is.

Florida Elite Soccer
$130 for 11 weeks at the rec level. Volunteer coaches also run practices. About $6 per session/game (if every week is a game), but it does cost $67.50 for the equipment. Other leagues have not mentioned this cost yet. Are there games every week? Who knows!

Good Lad Soccer Camps
Not a league, but you get a week-long camp (9am - 3pm) for $280. So, 30 hours for $9.33 an hour. It does mean your kids aren't home watching Youtube all day for a week in the summer, anyhow. My daughter is not THAT into practice, however, so I wonder if she'd like a camp.

i9 
As far as I can tell, i9 only goes up to age 8 for soccer and then age 14 for a multi-sport camp, so not what I'm looking for.


Jacksonville Armada Foot Club Youth Academy

Weird name; used to be First Coast Soccer Association, then Armada. But it looks like Armada let the old domain die (because it wasn't tied to making money for RPFunding?), so it looks like there's nothing here.  The actual Armada youth program (Recreation) has 8 games at $125. Assuming 8 practices, that's $7.80 per session/game. An email from a parent at our school said it was $135 and included the uniform pack, which would make this a very good deal compared to leagues that charge a lot more for uniforms. The uniforms for that team might be used...not sure.

Jacksonville Youth Soccer Club
Redirects to Florida Elite.

Jewish Community Alliance Soccer
Broken website needs Brave New Church or Passive Ninja Web Design. Maybe there's soccer, maybe there's not.  I can't tell. 

Mayport Youth Sports Soccer
It's Navy-only, from what I can tell. If you're in the Navy and have kids, this would be one to check out.


Oceanway Sports Association
There's nothing worse than a website that makes you create an account to register without any information (that I could find) about how many weeks or cost. If it's not obvious enough for a web designer to find, it's not obvious at all. All the affiliations and badges don't mean anything if I don't know the cost.

 Westside Soccer Club

$120 for my kid and another $54 for the uniform. 13 weeks of the season, but somehow I don't think each week is a game. Actually, I'm starting to doubt many of the websites that don't specifically tell you HOW MANY GAMES the kids play. Why is that hard to do?


The Y
The link I found seems to be broken. Such a waste of time finding something, and then it seems pretty weak. Indoor, five game season, etc. $95 for non-members. Probably no practices and no skills taught. 

Conclusion
Unless I'm missing something, there used to be more soccer options in Jacksonville. We seem to have Armada and Florida Elite moving in on some defunct leagues. Because we're so spread out here, the slight differences in price are probably irrelevant. It does not seem as if there's actual competition that overlaps in most parts of Jax, as if each major soccer league is some kind of gang or something. One thing we know for sure is that fun4firstcoastkids needs to check on those links, especially since it's a top search for soccer in Jacksonville. But I understand, since I probably won't rewrite this article anytime soon.