Age and Gender Divisions

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The major classification for divisions and teams is found in the Governing Docs, in the Rules and Regulations under section III. Registration.

A quick summary is given here:

• Girls teams must always be only girls. Boys can be exclusively boys or mixed gender. Separate gender teams are strongly encouraged at all age levels.
• Two year age spread divisions are the norm except for the pre-K and K league where single age is expected. Age divisions are classified by the "not older than" age as of the start of the registration year (1 August).
• One year age spread divisions can be used if there are just too many players and teams for a single two year wide division. If players from two different age divisions are on one team at team formation time, the team is classified by the division the oldest player would be a part of. When two teams play of different divisions, they play by the older age division rules.

Note: Some feel geographic zoning to split into two parallel divisions is better than splitting to single year age divisions. Especially if a team has a chance to go on to tournament play outside the region where competing teams would be balanced with players spread across a two year age group.

There is a lot of mis-information out on region websites and other places about Play Up and Play Down. Amazingly, the National office policies are silent on the matter. Hence allowing the various local policies and statements. But most regions follow a general convention that has now been first written in the 2010 National Tournament Team Formation document.

In summary, play down's are extremely rare, almost unheard of or never allowed, and strongly discouraged. They are only approved in the circumstances of a smaller, very below average player who is not so out of their age development level to play in VIP and cannot really participate in their normal age group. Play up and girls playing on boys teams is more common, especially if:

• the school cut-off date is different than AYSO'sand isolates a player from their classmates
• the player is very skilled for their age and needs the challenge of the older game or other gender (in the case of girls) to develop their skills further and enjoy playing; and they can play safely in the older division

Players should not be allowed to play down just to be with their grade friends. While schools simply compete by grade they also allow students to start a year later and thus making them older and more developed than most of their peers. You have to be careful to not allow the desire to keep a student with their grade to override the stricter age grouping definition that is trying to keep common sized, skilled and age players together.

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