‘It’s a secret’: Maine mom tries to register daughter for youth soccer. Then they ask for $150—but refuse to give the practice and game schedule

All Julia Duggan wants to do is sign her 7-year-old daughter up for soccer. But according to her, knowing when she'll actually have to show up is asking too much.

The Maine mom (@joolia_go0lia) posts a skit reenacting the frustrating experience of trying to register a child for youth sports without knowing whether the family's schedule can actually accommodate it.

In the video, which has gotten more than 137,000 views, Duggan plays both herself and a representative from a soccer organization. The latter seems baffled by her entirely reasonable questions.

“I'd like to register my daughter for soccer. She's 7,” she says in the clip.

“Oh, that's so great,” the rep responds. “Here's the link. It's $150.”

Duggan points out that the registration link doesn't include any details about practices or games.

“Yeah, we don't have that yet … The season hasn't started,” the rep replies. “This is just registration.”

Duggan wonders how she's supposed to commit to an activity without knowing when it takes place. “What if we can't be there?” she asks.

“That's kind of a you problem,” the rep responds.

‘The season hasn't started yet'

The mom then tries a different approach. She suggests “it would be kind of helpful for everyone to know when these things are happening so that we can know that we can … do this activity.”

“Again, I'm failing to see where I fall into this,” the rep responds. “The season hasn't started yet.”

Duggan persists, saying, “Okay, but you must have a general idea of when practices are gonna be in games, especially because these things take a long time to plan.”

“They do take a long time to plan. Thank you for noticing. But no, you can't have them,” the rep says.

Duggan catches the apparent contradiction, saying, “So you already have them. Why can't I have them?”

The rep giggles and replies, “It's a secret.”

As everyone knows, the first rule of children's soccer is you don't talk about children's soccer.

‘Pretty common in the soccer world'

Parents in the comment section of Duggan's video chimed in with their own youth sports grievances, with one woman writing, “And then they email out the schedule and you're starting in TWO days.”

A self-described soccer mom commented five crying laughing emojis, writing, “They're not giving you any info until like the day you get there lol.”

To this, Duggan replied, “My son is on [three] teams so I'm super aware haha it's wild out here … I would love to be able to schedule anything else ever, but I guess my life & family's life is just ‘soccer' for now until … they graduate?”

Another parent said their family had speech therapy scheduled at the exact same time as soccer, noting that “We didn't find that out until we paid … Super annoying.”

Parents on Reddit aired similar complaints. Some agreed that it is “Pretty common in the soccer world … to not get a schedule until the Monday of tournament week.”

“Yeah, the tournaments (in order to try and make every single $ they can) leave registration open waaaay too long, and therefore the scheduling is always a cluster,” one user wrote. “Happens at pretty much every level so no, it doesn't get much better even at high levels of play.”

Why do youth soccer leagues not release schedules until the last minute?

Parents across social media listed several reasons why youth soccer leagues and tournaments often delay dropping schedules. These include the fact that teams often aren't finalized until registration closes, and that many rec sports are volunteer-based, meaning practice and game times depend on the availability of coaches and fields.

“As a volunteer coach, [two days out] is as soon as we know anything,” one man commented on Duggan's video.

A similar question was posed in the Chicago Travel Baseball Facebook group, with one parent replying, “Waiting payment, looking for more teams, field availability, umpires. Plenty of reasons this can happen.”

Pennsylvania's West Bradford Youth Athletics explains on its website that schedules typically aren't finalized until one or two weeks before the season begins, noting that “practice nights depend on field availability and your child's coach's preference.”