So it's pretty clear that fees of over $2k a year are a major impediment to getting talented youngsters into the NPL (and to a lesser extent SAP).

With fees that high it's obvious that young guns that can't afford it are missing out to our detriment. (I'm assuming everyone is on board with casting to the widest possibly net).

So clearly fees are a major issue. The question is then how to reduce them because there are costs associated with these teams that are substantial including substantial travel, paid coaches, multiple kits etc etc.

If a club only has X dollars raised from all of the juniors and those under 6's through 11's are paying say $200 a year do you jack those costs up for all those kids to reduce fees for the NPL?

Just exactly what do you do to get the costs down?

I am not in favour of transferring funds upwards for any purpose.

With every NPL club requiring coaches with specific licenses, the costs of those licenses needs to be brought down. A quick trip to the Football TAS site shows that an FFA 'B' [AFC 'B' equivalent] license costs $2,450 to do in Australia. The exact same license costs AU$271 to do in India. I did my AFC 'C' license in Brunei while I was on holiday abroad, it cost me $350 to do [it's $400 in Australia last time I heard].

I'm looking at the paperwork I submitted to them at the moment, and the prices of future courses are:
AFC B - $650
AFC A - $1,950

Upon my return to Australia, I was told that I would have to pay the then FFA a 'conversion fee' for my AFC C license to be recognized in Australia, as they will only recognize FFA licences here.

The reason that I bring up the cost of coaching licences is that every NPL coach will have paid these exorbitant costs in order to get the licences required, and they will want to make that money back. That'll come via the remuneration that they receive from the club, and the club passes that cost onto the parents of the players. When you consider that NPL clubs are training 3 nights a week, a game on the weekend: it's a minimum of 20hrs work every week for the coach, on top of his regular day job. You're looking at $15-20k/season for most U13-16 coaches I'd imagine, and then you're looking at even more once you get closer to seniors. I've heard of numerous NPL senior men head coaches getting over $50k/season, and then you have the club TD who is on even more than that.

It's little wonder why fees are so high when clubs need to recoup these costs. If we make the licences cheaper here, maybe we can drive down the remuneration required, and pass on the savings to parents. Fwiw, I don't think the fees are right in the slightest, but I can somewhat understand why they are where they're at. Changes need to happen, because the game needs to be available to EVERYONE, and not just those that can afford it. It's the world game ffs.

I think the reason the costs have gone up is because of a longer season, I could be wrong though but the need for a longer season will probably mean a pressure on the costs involved. 

But it ultimately comes down to money, with the demand of elite football therefore the service needs to be higher quality therefore a pressure to get the right coaches, facilities, equipment etc along with travel would mean a more expensive service 

Isn't part of the inflated costs due to NPL Clubs getting sucked in to overpaying 1sts players ?
Wasn't it more under control when FFA/State managed SAP ?
For since Clubs have handled SAP, have raised the costs not only due to the additional internal costs but covering 1sts payments.
This has always been the word, and plus even if not the issue is as some say, parents are just willing to cough up the dough, the ones that can do.
Yes this leaves the have nots with no option.

PIFA or Arthur, more so can enlighten the above, apoligies IF I'm all wrong.

The seasons aren't that long Barca yet, hence why we're going finally to 16Club comps to get them longer.

From my experience, a club sponsor typically pays for a player that's going to be costly. So the club will say "we want to sign, he'll cost" to a sponsor, and then they'll agree to it, or pass on paying it. I'm sure there are clubs that do use the money made from their junior base to pay for first-team players, but the way to combat that is for all the clubs to agree to get payments under control. Can you imagine, if all the NPL clubs went "none of us will pay more than 'x' to a player" and stuck to it? Player payments would drop immediately! Unfortunately, they all want that silverware, so it'll never happen.

Yes, yes, yes.

The costs are what the costs are. The point is how do we/football reduce the fees so that good players that can't afford to play can afford to play.

Surely we need to reward clubs for developing players by including fees and compensation into transfers. This way they will look for the most gifted children, not the wealthiest.
Then we need to allow NPL clubs to grow their profile and resources by way of the 2nd division and the promise of promotion.

Maybe we need more investors in the sport?
The NRL and AFL benefit from help from sponsors and huge TV deals with less of an participation base to work it to find the best athletes unlike our sport when we have the most in participation but with the fear of losing them to other sports.

Elite football rightly or wrongly is an expensive investment which requires money, alot of it.
Football suffers from a bottom up approach rather than top down approach like the other codes, so these less money into the game as go down the chain so to speak.

Its good to see aleague clubs invest in youth academies as they have the capacity to do this but of course you need others contributing the NPL system is hard when they run as semi pro clubs and are expect to deliver a service thats compatible to elite development standards, maybe Arthur could explain it better for us?

The domestic transfer system or compensation system is a start but clearly the game needs more investment to take pressure of the payer.

Its not just payments to first team players, but also maintaining a pitch / club facilities etc.
It's different from state to state, club to club, but all said and done, the big difference between say AFL and our football is that the state league clubs in AFL do not directly look after juniors.
That task is left to junior football clubs, where fees are heavily subsided by the AFL, and these clubs are run off volunteer power and don't have a first team to pay, and facilities are generally paid for by the council.

When you analyze the NPL Youth fees, which vary from State to State, they represent value for money.
At around $50 per week for a minimum 3 sessions and a game over 40 weeks. That’s a minimum 8 hours contact time a week at $6.25 an hour
with all the costs around the programs and the demand and supply issues driving costs, such as hiring accredited coaches. A Licence coaches don’t come cheap
For those that say NPL Youth fees are used to pay senior players, that’s wishful thinking especially at the bigger clubs where you weekly football budget is over $20k per week

What is extremely frustrating, time consuming and not often mentioned  is the amount of unpaid volunteer hours still involved.
The most frustrating is compliance and audit to meet the conditions of the clubs NPL Licence. And if you don’t meet it you’re out of NPL.

The NPL Youth system was touted as the Development Factory for the Socceroos and A League .
There are approximately 16,000 youth playing NPL from U13 to U20.
Thats over 2,000 players in the each age cohort.
So how many in each age cohort will;
become a socceroo
 become an ALeague player
become a NPL 1 player
 My guess is 1% overall in the above three categories 

thanks for the input fellas....
Yes the underlying costs running the Club period and oh you bet the amount of devoted volunteers.

Arthur re 1st payments, I mentioned that for that "goss" has been doing the rounds for years....
IF true who knows but obviously comes down to how the Treasurer works out the ingoings outgoings.
As PIFA mantions, yes a sponser or sponsers funds can cover the costs the costs of X amount of players depending the outlay. 
Some have their own individual sponsers as we see.

Your breakdown works out not that bad at all - States will vary as we know.
Its not cheap being in NPL period for a Club, those without much resource do it damn hard and agree, how can they grow in the current climate and regulations.

Re catching more talented kids, maybe Clubs should be more pro active looking at another way how to register a promising kid/or one they see worth the punt when his/her parents cannot pay $2k +.......
I expect this does occur at times but how many slip through because the Club isn't more open/creative let alone just too damn busy.