Success Academy Soccer Program – New York

THE PURPOSE

The Soccer Program was created to make soccer a discipline open to all, without distinctions of origin, race, religion, or economic possibilities. Unlike much of the rest of the world, in the United States, soccer is considered a “privileged” sport, not accessible to the majority of the population due to the pay-to-play model. The differences in access to the discipline are even more pronounced in a profoundly multicultural context like that of New York City, characterized by deep social inequalities.

For this reason, Success Academy primarily operates in the areas of Brooklyn, Manhattan (Harlem), Queens, and the Bronx, where many families experience conditions of deep economic and social hardship, or who do not enjoy an economic level sufficient to guarantee their children a quality education, let alone the opportunity to participate in a paid sports course. Success Academy aims to contribute to a slow but steady socio-cultural change, giving disadvantaged children the opportunity to enjoy quality sports and educational preparation, while also fueling the development of the entire American soccer landscape, particularly regarding the public education system.

BENEFICIARIES

From 2014 to the present, the Soccer Program has welcomed over 6,000 boys and girls, aged 5 to 15, who attend charter schools in the New York neighborhoods involved in the project, of which 85% come from low-income families. What characterizes the soccer program the most is the great diversity in gender and, especially, ethnicity: 76% of the children are African American, 15% are Latino, 1% are Asian, and an additional 3% are multiracial.