Portland Timbers vs Columbus Crew 2016 season opener

Soccer enthusiasts storm the field before the Portland Timbers' season-opener at Providence Park. (Thomas Boyd)

Money, branding, influence? The Portland Timbers are on a marvelous roll.

And the best example of that may not be that 2015 Major League Soccer championship, but the Timbers' stranglehold on Oregon youth soccer.

To wit: In recent months, Lake Oswego Soccer Club and Crossfire Oregon alone entered 40 premier and classic teams in the Oregon Youth Soccer Association fall and winter leagues.

Because league fees range from $800 to $975 per team, the clubs wrote checks totaling $36,325 to ...

Peregrine Sports LLC, the for-profit company that owns the Portland Timbers.

Anyone else think that's odd? The Trail Blazers aren't running this city's youth-basketball leagues. The Seahawks aren't cashing the checks necessary to keep Pee Wee football teams afloat in Seattle.

So, how did Merritt Paulson's company end up at the top of the pyramid in Soccer City?

The Timbers say it's a model of efficiency, a showcase of consistent coaching, an (eventual) pipeline to the pros for home-grown talent, and, hey, all for the good of the beautiful game.

"When we came into the situation," says Mike Smith, the director of Timbers Academy, "the leagues across the state were very fractured. By taking over, we've doubled the membership of Oregon youth soccer and put everyone under the same umbrella."

It's also fair to assume that Peregrine and the Timbers use most of those fees to hire referees, rent fields and keep a few folks breathing inside the hollow shell of the OYSA.

But even as they marvel at the club's marketing bravado, critics contend that too many of the benefits accrue to the capitalists at the top of the pyramid, not the 60,000 kids playing at its base.

Several continue to question the Timbers Academy's 10-month season and its ban on playing high-school soccer, a mandate handed down in 2012 by the U.S. Soccer Federation and Major League Soccer.

"What you're seeing with the Timbers Academy is the birth of the zero-sport athlete," says Mike Hughes, the athletic director at Jesuit High School, a program that has lost several players to the club's development program.

"They can do zero high-school sports. (Soccer) is a year-round job. They become ghost students. They don't come to the prom. They're not actively engaged with their high school.

"We're all very frustrated with the Timbers."

So is Mark Olen, president of the Lake Oswego Soccer Club and an assistant coach at Lake Oswego High school.

"We love the Timbers' professional team. We've had season tickets since day one," Olen says. "But what they've done for youth soccer is tax the masses, and use that to keep the cost down for the 50 best boys in the state."

Smith insists that's not the case: "None of the fees go to subsidize Academy." But when I asked the Timbers how much Peregrine collects from the 73 competitive clubs on the Oregon Youth Soccer Association website, or how parents can follow the money when a private, for-profit company is involved, no one was available to do the math.

Other questions persist. Can the Timbers fairly administer Oregon youth soccer when it allows a select group of alliance clubs, outfitted by Adidas, "the unique privilege of incorporating the Timbers brand into their club name?"

How dramatically will the Timbers be involved when the U.S. Soccer Federation - seemingly unimpressed by the U.S. women's 2015 World Cup victory - launches Development Academy for girls in 2017?

"We don't know," Smith said Thursday. "U.S. Soccer has not released enough details for us to make a decision."

The long-term effort to re-cast U.S. soccer in the European club model certainly has its upside for the best athletes and the power-brokers who have an economic incentive to control them.

As Greg Bean, the boys' coach at West Linn High School, notes, "Your best opportunity to be seen by a college coach is not playing high-school ball," but for an academy team. "That's where you get travel and exposure.

"Do you miss the high-school experience? Yes. That's where the tragedy is for me."

Youth soccer in Oregon is an ongoing experience in turf wars, delusional parental ambitions, exorbitant fees, and conflicts of interest.

And for better or worse - and money, branding and influence - the Timbers have taken charge of the game.

It's marketing genius, an exercise in crowd control the Seattle Sounders and LA Galaxy can only dream about.

But it remains to be seen if this power play will profit the kids who love the game as royally as it does Merritt Paulson, Timbers' general manager Gavin Wilkinson and Peregrine Sports.

-- Steve Duin

stephen.b.duin@gmail.com