Real Salt Lake, UYSA join forces for Utah youth soccer

In a press release Wednesday morning, Real Salt Lake and the Utah Youth Soccer Association announced the formation of a new partnership to integrate recreational youth soccer programs in Utah with the RSL Family.

In creating the RSL Jr. Recreation Program, complete with a new RSL Family logo that incorporates the identities of RSL, Real Monarchs SLC, and Utah Royals FC, the youth soccer community takes a big step forward in having a recognizable and highly-visible presence in the state of Utah. This will begin to put soccer on par with the Jr. Jazz program, which has spent decades uniting the Utah Jazz with the youth basketball teams in the state.

As the player development process continues to grow for the RSL organization, this takes a big step towards mirroring what is found in Europe and around the world where kids are brought in under the club umbrella from a young age.

Putting the RSL name and logo on the uniforms of all youth players lends a sense of unity and belonging that can carry forward into a desire to train at one of the satellite academy buildings, which ultimately lead to invitations to the full academy setup at Zions Bank Real Academy in Herriman, as well as whatever future location is identified as a URFC academy.

Ultimately this will be another positive milestone in creating a strong soccer culture in Utah, one that nurtures and develops top talent for our own teams, and creates opportunities for players to be noticed by clubs around the world as potential players.