Spring 2026 Season Wrap Up

Dear SFYS Community,

Thank you for being such a vital part of our Spring 2026 season! Our league thrives because of the incredible players, dedicated parent volunteers, and supportive coaches who show up every week to make soccer an enjoyable experience for San Francisco's youth.

As we head into summer, we want to share some beautiful milestones from this past season, along with a few community-first updates as we look ahead to the Fall.

Celebrating Our Seniors: The Ultimate "Play, Learn, Grow" Story

The absolute highlight of our Spring season was celebrating 24 high school seniors. Their journey embodies everything SFYS stands for:

• 8 of these seniors have played with SFYS for an incredible 10+ years!
• The seniors on our two GOFC teams have collectively officiated 2,242 games for SFYS and earned $79,000 since September 2011.

Several of these graduates started out in our early Referee Academies, growing from young players into community leaders and mentors on the pitch. We are deeply grateful for their dedication, leadership, and love for the game. We can’t wait to see the positive impact they will undoubtedly make next!

Welcoming the Next Generation of Referees

Speaking of growing our community, our upcoming June and August Referee Academies are officially sold out! We are thrilled to welcome 72 new referees into the SFYS family this Fall. Please join us in giving these new refs—many of whom are youth players themselves—a warm, supportive welcome when you see them on the pitch.

Empowering Our Community Through Technology

Living and playing in San Francisco, we can't let a season go by without highlighting the impact of technology on our sport! This Spring, we were excited to roll out direct access to our scheduling platform, Avario. There were over 200 schedule requests this season representing 16% of the scheduled 1248 games.

Our goal with this rollout was simple: to put the player and team experience first by removing league bottlenecks. By opening up the platform, we wanted to:

• Provide full transparency on open fields across the city.
• Empower team admins with the autonomy to manage and coordinate reschedules directly.
• Streamline communication, allowing team admins to connect with one another effortlessly.

We love seeing our community utilize these tools to keep the focus where it belongs—getting the kids on the pitch!

Player-First Scheduling: Lessons Learned for Spring 2027

To ensure our league truly serves our families, we are always listening and learning. This Spring, we processed 196 schedule requests, largely due to overlapping school Spring Breaks. Because we want to ensure every single team gets to enjoy their full 8 games with minimal disruption, we are making the following adjustments:

• Two Weekend Byes for Spring 2027: This will drastically reduce the need for stressful, last-minute reschedules.
• Flexible "Daily" Fall Preferences: We know our players and parent volunteers have rich lives outside of soccer - including camping trips, outdoor education, and school carnivals. To support your family time, Fall play preferences will now let you select individual days for a bye rather than losing a whole weekend.

Protecting the Joy of the Game: Our Sideline Culture

Our primary goal is to provide a safe, joyful, and encouraging environment where today’s youth can develop into tomorrow’s leaders. Unfortunately, we received a record number of reports of referee abuse and unsportsmanlike conduct this season. Because our referees are often our own community's kids, we must do better to protect them and our players.

During the offseason, we highly recommend that all coaches, team admins, and at least one parent per player complete The Sideline Project course. There is currently no cost for our community, once you create your free account here. Let’s partner together to ensure our sidelines are filled with nothing but positive, joyful encouragement for both the young players and the referees.

Your Voice Matters - We Want to Hear From You!

We didn’t receive as much feedback regarding the player experience this season compared to past seasons, but it is not too late! As a community-first league, we can only improve if you share your thoughts. Please take a moment to let us know how SFYS can better serve your family, team, coach or player. 

Thank you all for your continued support of your players and the SFYS community. Have a safe, wonderful summer, and we will see you back on the pitch in September!

With gratitude,

The SFYS Team