The turning point
US youth soccer is broken.
We're building the blueprint to fix it.
Solstice FC is an open-source specification for a community-owned youth soccer cooperative — affordable, transparent, merit-based. Every decision was stress-tested through 25 structured debates before a single line of bylaws was written.
The Model
Community-Owned
Nonprofit cooperative, one-club-one-vote. Clubs are member-owners, not franchisees. Governance is the competitive advantage — the league you own.
Affordable
$2,000–$2,800/year flat. No hidden fees. Constitutional cap at 150% of founding rates. Scholarship target of 20%+ roster coverage through three funding streams.
Merit-Based
Metro-scoped promotion/relegation starting at U13. All criteria and standings public. Technical metrics over physical. Consent-first player data with maturation context.
High Floor, Full Autonomy
Non-negotiable standards: licensed coaches, training minimums, financial transparency, SafeSport. Above the floor, clubs control methodology, culture, and programming.
Built Through Debate
25
Lincoln-Douglas debates
9
spec documents
8
AI agent personas
Before writing a single line of bylaws, we ran 25 structured debates between AI agents — 13 on architecture, governance, and player development, then 12 more on the revenue model alone. Three rotating judges scored on logic, feasibility, evidence, and clash. No predetermined outcomes. The spec is what survived the arguments.
Who's Behind This
I'm Houston, a dad in San Diego whose kid plays competitive club soccer. I've watched families spend $5,000–$15,000 a year on a system that's fragmented, opaque, and structurally designed to extract money rather than develop players.
Solstice FC is the turning point. Latin solstitium — “the sun stands still.” The moment the longest night ends and the light starts coming back. US youth soccer is in its longest night. This is the design for what comes next.
Everything is published. Everything is open. The spec, the debates, the reasoning, the failures. That's the point.
Latest from the Workshop
12 More Debates: Operations, Governance, and the Hard Questions
The original 25 debates designed the club. These 12 expansion debates answer the operational questions you hit when you actually try to build it.
Four Debates on Scaling a Soccer Cooperative
We ran four Lincoln-Douglas debates on the hardest questions about growing Solstice FC beyond San Diego: affiliate branding, cross-border programming, inclusion mandates, and voting mechanics. The results will shape our expansion protocol.
Long-Term Athletic Development in Soccer: What Parents Should Know
What the Long-Term Athletic Development (LTAD) model means for youth soccer — the five development stages, why early specialization backfires, what age-appropriate training looks like, and why the best programs appear 'slower' at young ages.