Montclair United Cuts Ties With Sports Domain Academy

David Deutsch and Gretchen Knowlton, co-presidents of the Montclair United Soccer Club, want to make clear that they have nothing to do with the Soccer Domain Football Club (SDFC).

In an email sent to Montclair soccer families Wednesday, the Montclair United Soccer Club said that the SDFC had distributed an advertisement via email that was "confusing" as it contained "inaccuracies that blur important differences between Montclair United and SDFC."

Apparently many families have said they are unclear of the distinction between Montclair United Soccer Club and SDFC and so Montclair United sent out an email Wednesday to clarify the issue.

It said: "Montclair United is a non-profit community organization run and staffed by volunteers; our charter is to promote the game of soccer for the children of Montclair and surrounding communities. SDFC is an affiliate of a business, a for-profit training organization called Sports Domain Academy (SDA) and sometimes referred to as 'Ashley's' or 'Soccer Domain'.

"Although Montclair United engaged SDA as a vendor to train our travel teams for many years, SDA is otherwise not affiliated with the Montclair United Soccer Club. In fact, by unanimous vote, the Board of Directors of Montclair United elected this spring to terminate SDA as the training organization for our U9 Boys Academy. In addition, Montclair United will not engage SDA for any of our teams or programs for the 2011-2012 season."

According to the email, Montclair United says that the "advertisement sent yesterday implied the U12 Boys team known as the Rangers is an SDFC team. In fact, the Rangers, which last weekend won the State Cup championship, is a Montclair United team that is trained by an employee of SDA. We have asked the management of SDFC to refrain from issuing advertisements like the one distributed yesterday that blur the differences between our organizations."