Most developed countries have a national soccer league for children with ambulatory cerebral palsy, stroke or traumatic brain injury. The US did not. We changed that.

CP Soccer’s mission is to build a nationwide soccer league for kids who are affected by cerebral palsy, stroke or traumatic brain injury. Currently, there is a clear path in the US for able-bodied kids to play soccer throughout their youth and up to the highest levels, culminating in the Olympics. For people with developmental disabilities, there are paths to the Special Olympics. Para-7-A-Side Soccer is the highest level of play for people with physical disabilities, who are otherwise developmentally able. To qualify for Para-7-A-Side Soccer, players must have some sort of brain injury – cerebral palsy, stroke or traumatic brain injury. While there are national feeder systems for Olympic Soccer and Special Olympic Soccer, there has been no national program for kids who would qualify for the Para-7-A-Side, until now.  

Many other countries have a national network of CP Soccer teams that function as a league, and enable people with CP to participate in soccer from a young age through to adulthood. England and Scotland, in particular, have very robust networks, with every major city sponsoring a local team. By contrast, the US has had no league and therefore no access to CP Soccer for young people who love to play. This is important because most kids who would qualify for CP Soccer find they are not capable enough to continue playing on competitive teams as they grow older and the level of play rises. They can’t keep up with able-bodied peers, so they end up being pushed out of the sport. By creating a national league, we are building a way for these kids to keep soccer in their lives.

CP Soccer started operations in September 2017 in the New York metro area. Our plan was to establish a successful local team and build from there. By end 2018, we had formed five teams (NYC, New Jersey, Mid Atlantic, Houston, South Florida). In fall 2019, we added three more teams: Atlanta, New England and North Texas.  We now have 13 teams throughout the states. To sponsor awareness and speed this process, in June 2018 we launched a sleep-away camp program, where kids with CP from across the country could play soccer and train with other kids like themselves. The first year we had 16 kids attended our camp and thoroughly loved the experience, in June 2022 we hosted 53 campers. In June 2023, we will have our fifth annual sleep away camp along with a new International Men’s Tournament with teams traveling from all parts of the world. Although we had to cancel our camp and festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on May 16th 2020, we hosted a live online training session for players from 18 nations. CP Soccer Goes Global was the first ever live online soccer training session to gather so many CP players from around the world. During the shelter-in-place period, CP Soccer continued to keep our players active through live online training sessions every week day, hosting players from over 20 states across the nation from our New Jersey base.

We encourage kids/parents at our camp who do not have a local team to start their own local teams. We now have a system in place to coach them on the startup process and we offer financial support where needed to help get them off the ground. In this way, we hope to build out a national league of local teams who can come together at least once a year and participate in a national tournament. We believe this could be a life-changing experience for many young people with CP.

In June 2023, we are holding our fifth sleep away camp hosting new and returning campers from across the country. You can sign up for camp here.

CP Soccer’s goal is to keep our players physically and socially engaged, no matter the circumstances.

To fund the above programs, we are soliciting donations. The primary purpose of our fundraising is to subsidize field time, coaching expenses, camp expenses and tournament costs, and startup costs for new teams. Now that we have grown, we have also started to incur significant overhead expenses for insurance, team management software, and important areas of risk management, like background checks for coaches. While some of our teams receive donated field time and coaching, many of them need to pay $100-200 for each practice. We also subsidize uniforms for all the kids, and offer financial aid to attend our camp. For our first camp, about 1/3 of the players received financial support. To date, we have not charged any families to participate in CP Soccer programming other than our summer camp, and we want all children who qualify to be able to participate, regardless of means. Cerebral Palsy Soccer, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit entity, and all donations are tax-exempt. If you want your donation to target a specific team or program, just clarify that in the donation form and 100% of the proceeds will go to that team.

Information Collection and Use

CP Soccer collects information from our users at several different points and is the sole owner of the data collected on the website. In each case, only information that is reasonably necessary to participate in the activity at hand will be sought. For example, CP Soccer will not ask children for their home mailing address in order to receive an e-mailed newsletter. We will never condition a child’s participation in an online activity on the disclosure of information that is beyond what is reasonably necessary for CP Soccer to conduct the applicable activity.

eNewsletter Subscriptions

CP Soccer does not require visitors to register in order to use this website. However, users have the option to subscribe to receive free eNewsletters. The content of CP Soccer’s eNewsletters is appropriate for all ages. We encourage parents to read and become familiar with the privacy policies and information collection practices of all other sites that their children enter. Information collected to distribute CP Soccer’s eNewsletters may be transferred, disclosed, or otherwise shared with third parties who handle the technical preparation and delivery of the newsletter. These third parties will not use the information for any other purposes and have agreed to keep all such information confidential. Our intent in collecting information from users is to provide the most personalized and rewarding online experience possible. Always keeping privacy in mind, we give parents the option to decline or “opt-out” of these types of e-mailed communications at the same point where we request information about the visitor on the page where information is collected. At any time, if you would like to “unsubscribe” or would prefer that you or your child’s information be removed from our database, and/or you do not want to receive future communications from CP Soccer or our partners, you may send an e-mail request to CP Soccer at nyc@cpsoccer.us, or use the contact information below:

CP Soccer, 94 Fargo Lane, Irvington, NY 10533

Online Purchasing

CP Soccer offers users the opportunity to purchase merchandise and services through the website. In connection with sales and to fulfill orders through the site, it is necessary to collect personal information about users, including name, billing and mailing addresses, e-mail address, telephone number, and a credit card number. If the order is being shipped to a third party, we also need the name and mailing address of the recipient. Unless otherwise approved by users, we do not sell, transfer or share the information with third parties except that we may transfer, disclose or share such information with third parties who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and manage certain functions (e.g. mailing merchandise sold through the website, collecting payments made through credit card payments). Such third parties have access to personal information only as needed to perform their functions, and have agreed to maintain the confidentiality of any information they receive from us and not use it for any other purposes.

Information Sharing

CP Soccer may accumulate and store aggregated demographic information about its users. This information is not linked or otherwise traceable to any identifiable personal information, and is used solely to advise website partners and advertisers of the site’s general audience characteristics and track responses to online programs and activities. Each of these partners has agreed to maintain the confidentiality, security and integrity of the information provided to them. In all cases where personal information is disclosed to a third party, parents have the right to say “no” to the sharing of such information.

When called upon to do so, CP Soccer will disclose information received as required by law, for example, in response to a court order or other specific requests by law enforcement agencies. We will not sell, share, or rent personally identifiable information to others in any way that violates this Privacy Statement or that otherwise jeopardizes the security and integrity of the information collected. However, we may use the personal information received from the users who have "opted in" to have sponsors, manufacturers and/or distributors contact them directly about such things as sales and special offers. We will seek verifiable parental consent prior to sharing information in any manner that differs materially from the practices described herein.

Parental Access/Control of Information

Any parent of a child who provides information to CP Soccer has the right to review the child’s personal information, order its deletion, and refuse to allow further collection or use of the child’s information. If you wish to do so, please contact CP Soccer at nyc@cpsoccer.us, or use the contact information below:

CP Soccer, 94 Fargo Lane, Irvington, NY 10533

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information about the user. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. CP Soccer does not use cookies to operate our site.

Security/Links

This website takes every precaution to protect our users' information. We do not ask our users for more information than is necessary to conduct the various activities being conducted on our website, and all of our information is protected both online and off-line through the use of industry-standard practices. CP Soccer encourages visitors to familiarize themselves, not only with this Privacy Statement, but also to review and understand the privacy policies and information collection practices of other websites that link to and from this site. While CP Soccer screens our links for overall content, information, and entertainment value, we are not responsible for the practices of other sites as they apply to privacy, security, integrity and compliance with COPPA. This Privacy Statement applies solely to information collected by this website.

Contacting the Website

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, or the practices of this site, or wish to modify or delete information previously submitted, please e-mail us at nyc@cpsoccer.us, or use the contact information below:

CP Soccer, 94 Fargo Lane, Irvington, NY 10533

LEGAL STATEMENT

All content and images on www.cpsoccer.us are owned by CP Soccer unless credited to a partner. Any re-use of the content and images is forbidden without consent from the site administrator. For more information, you can send an e-mail to CP Soccer at nyc@cpsoccer.us or use the contact information below:

CP Soccer, 94 Fargo Lane, Irvington, NY 10533