Our new process to complete individual player registration and payment

During the break we have had the opportunity to review our player registration and procedures and look at how we can make this work without an office and to make it easier on the team managers and players.

The registration system we use has an option that a player will not clear to your roster until the league office approves that clearance.  We have activated that option.  You can now load your player pool and add new players.  The team manager can see them, but they will not publicly display until the league admin staff has cleared them.  That will happen after the player completes a new payment system that we started in summer 2021.

All player registration payments will be made online.  We have added a new twist that ultimately will make life easier both for team managers and for those of running the league.   The ASL registration fee for fall Sunday play at the complex is $80 and is $50 for the Wednesday 7 v 7 coed. As described below, everyone will need to pay an annual fee of $20 for your national registration as described below.

We are affiliated with US Soccer and US Adult Soccer Association.  That provides us access to certified referees from US Soccer and our liability and player accident insurance through US Adult Soccer Association.  It costs every play $20 a year for those memberships.  It makes no difference if a player plays on 1 team or 15 teams during that year.  It’s $20.  If you want the long-winded explanation, email us and we’ll provide it.  We’ll skip it here. 

For registration purposes, our fiscal year has been beginning on September for everyone.  That’s when we had to collect $20 again for every player and it was blended into the fee for fall and spring soccer.  It’s why we had a mess of different fees depending on whether you played on another team on x date and blah blah.  This will fix all of that.

Starting now, every player who plays on at least one team will need to pay directly to NM State Soccer Association a $20 fee.  If that person plays on 6 teams during the summer, that person still pays the $20 only on the first registration.  That $20 applies to fall 2021 and spring 2022 and the player will pay the $20 again next May if they want to play summer soccer.  We have signed up with a payment app called Cheddar Up to collect the NMSSA payments.  The link to go pay that fee is on the front page under the heading Useful Stuff for Every Season. And it’s here.  We’re absorbing the processing fee so it will show as $19 and your total with the fee will be close to $20.  We will notify each player when their one year is expiring so they can make their $20 payment for the next year.  If they do not, then we simply remove them from any rosters they’re currently on and you, team manager, don’t have to do anything other than tell them that you told them to pay and they didn’t.

After paying the $20 fee, your player can then go to the team folder like they always have pay the fee to ASL for ASL soccer.  Everyone will pay the same fee and no one has to worry when anyone played last.  Therefore, anyone who registers for the summer season will not have to pay the $20 fee for fall 2021 or Spring 2022. 

When your player has paid their $20 NMSSA fee and their ASL fee through your team folder, we will then release that player to your roster.  Every day we download from both systems a spreadsheet with player payments and can see who has paid both and every day after 5 pm we will clear the players who properly paid and they’ll show on your roster.  They’re only on your roster if they are completely paid up.  Therefore, your roster accurately reflects the players who are eligible to play.  The referee needs a copy of that roster and your players can present their ID and that’s it.  If the player lost their passcard, that’s no longer a problem. If the player drives to the field without a drivers license, that’s no longer the league’s fault or the referee’s fault.

There are a couple of helpful features this will provide you as a team manager.  If a player tells you they already paid the $20, you can confirm that fairly easily by looking at the roster of any other team they claim to be registered on.  If they display on that roster, then their account is current and they have paid the $20.  That helps you with people who are especially forthcoming, which usually involves money.

If a player has been suspended for a red card, we have a different system through this process that allows us to remove them from your roster for the specific time period in which they are suspended due to the red card.  You don’t have to do anything and we publish the red card suspensions already.

A caveat we’re working on.  People have a bad habit of losing things at the field, like their shoes and their smartphones.  Don’t ask how we know this.  While this system helps overcome the waiting in line problem and the I forgot my passcard (also know as the referee must have kept it because I’d never lose it) problem.  We still have our large printer in storage and are working to get it set up in a friendly business willing to give us space to do admin work, like printing passcards during their off hours.  We’d propose that if your team requests, we’d make you passcards for your current season because we’d feel better if the player misplaced the passcard and could use their drivers license since we know the grief of replacing a lost driver’s license or your work ID card, especially if it happens to come from a very security conscious large corporation located near the airport.  More to come on that as we get it figured out.

Sponsors

Albuquerque Sol

Affiliates

New Mexico State Soccer Association

United State Adult Soccer Association

United States Soccer Federation