Chances are you missed the story when it first broke. And if you did happen to catch it, in spite of it barely registering a blip on the soccer media's radar, you probably weren't sufficiently bothered to pay it much mind. But the news of America's youth clubs petitioning FIFA for their solidarity funds could have a cataclysmic impact on our soccer scene.

So here's what you missed: A few weeks ago, SI.com and VICE Sports reported that Crossfire Premier, a top youth soccer club in the Seattle area, had asked FIFA to intervene in its dispute with Major League Soccer and the United States Soccer Federation. After the Seattle Sounders sold U.S. national team winger DeAndre Yedlin to Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League for a reported $4 million fee, Crossfire Premier reached out to Spurs for its share of the so-called "solidarity funds."

Solidarity funds are a mechanism instituted by FIFA a few years ago that ensures all of the clubs who had a hand in developing a player get a cut of an eventual transfer fee to more fairly distribute the spoils of his – and their – success. The rules are fairly complicated, but since Yedlin was sold to a club in a different country before the age of 23, the clubs responsible for developing him are technically entitled to a share of 5 percent of his transfer fee – depending on how much time he spent with them.

Crossfire Premier was one of those clubs, even though Yedlin also played for two other clubs in the Seattle area, before joining the Sounders academy and then playing for the University of Akron – which, in an interesting wrinkle, would also be entitled to a small share. According to SI.com's reporting, Spurs acknowledged Crossfire's claim, but MLS and U.S. Soccer intercepted and claimed the funds before they could be dispatched to the youth club. They claimed a ruling in an old and sealed anti-trust case filed against MLS by its players in 1996 preempts monetary entitlements like the solidarity funds. MLS is essentially arguing that the FIFA rule doesn't apply and that it gets to keep all transfer proceeds – since player contracts are technically owned by the league, which administrates transfers abroad.

Crossfire, through its lawyers, has asked FIFA to either force payment or permit a lawsuit against MLS and U.S. Soccer. Others clubs have now joined them, according to a second SI.com report. The Dallas Texans, for instance, claim they have a right to a share from Clint Dempsey's 2007 transfer from the New England Revolution to Fulham.

These contributions can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And over in Europe, entire amateur clubs are kept afloat by the solidarity funds of the one alumnus who made it big. VV Bedum, a puny provincial club in the Netherlands, has raked in piles of money from Arjen Robben's transfers from PSV to Chelsea, and then to Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. That money has allowed the club to keep its doors open and give more young children a place to play. And that's sort of the point.

But here in the U.S., any breakthrough by Crossfire et al in securing the solidarity funds they seem rightfully entitled to – no matter what deal MLS may have struck with its players more than a decade ago – could have far bigger consequences. Because it could alter the calculus of the entire youth game, with far-reaching benefits for the sport in America as a whole – including MLS and U.S. Soccer.

It's hard to say how it would affect the college game exactly – the deeply problematic notion of amateurism would become even harder to defend if schools started collecting transfer fees for their so-called student-athletes.

The youth game, however, could be turned completely on its head. The model as it exists now funnels the best players to travel teams with words like "elite" or "premier" or "select" in their names. They're ruinously expensive and, as such, highly lucrative to a few. While financial aid usually exists for the truly gifted, the pay-to-play model tends to discourage entry from any player whose parents aren't firmly in the upper-middle class. It therefore freezes anyone without a serious disposable income out of the best coaching and competition.

View photos America's pay-to-play system has kept out kids from lower-income families. (AP Photo) More

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