It's no secret Watsonville and surrounding cities have some of the biggest soccer fanatics and players on the central coast. If you live in the city of Watsonville, it is most likely you have played at the Soccer Central Indoor Facility. But my question is, have you ever been treated unfair as a customer? Has the administration and staff done their job poorly and you feel you never could do or say anything because you feel nothing would get done in your favor? Well this is why I started this petition, because I have been a customer (player and coach of teams I make there) for over 9 years and I have never been treated so unfairly as in the situation I am about to explain below. PLEASE read this, SHARE IT and let your stories be heard about this facility.

On April 27, 2017 my indoor team Soccer World FC was involved in an incident at the Soccer Central Indoor Facility in Watsonville, CA.

A summary of the incident is pretty much this:

My team was playing a heated game, one player from the other team in particular kept physically rough playing my players play after play. After one hard foul on a player on my team, I had enough and I confronted the player that was really rough and told him what his problem was and to calm down. (Something the referee didn't do, calm the players down. That is KEY, because the referee let the situation escalate to the point it did.) As soon as I told the player those words, his teams' bench door opens and his team jumped in onto the field and started physically attacking my players. I remember their player throwing the first punch which my player ducked, if he hadn't he would of been knocked out cold for sure. I got hit with the first punch in the face and I remember very clearly putting my hands up in the air, turning around and giving my attacker my back. A very clear sign that I did not want to be involved in any type of fight or physical altercation. I stepped back and noticed the chaos erupt in front of me, even people who were watching the game were recording and on the field. While all this is going on, more than half of my team were not participating at all in the altercation. One of the players in particular his mom took him off the field and away from everything as soon as she saw what was happening. (This player was given a 1 year suspension and fined individually.) He was not at all close to the altercation in any way. I got involved only when I saw this big tall guy, who was not a player that night but on the bench of the other team, attempt to or punch one of my players who was a minor. I got him from the collar and dragged him down. We are both big guys, so when I pulled him down we both fell to the ground. He got up first, and as I was getting up he kicked me on the top of my head with a power kick. I was left with a bruise and had to go to the hospital emergency room after the incident to get checked out. Another player on my team, who was a minor, got kicked in the head while he was on the ground by one of the players of the other team as well and had to go to the hospital after to get checked out as well. Me, the minor and 2 others from my team were the only ones really involved in this and we were all involved defending ourselves or the players getting attacked. In no way did we want to fight or get violent towards anybody. The other team on the other hand, were on an attack against us, hitting anybody and everybody they could. Even non-players on their bench were attacking us. By experience, I know the possible consequences of fighting in the facility and that is why I did not go on attack mode during the whole incident. 

After the incident, my whole team went near the staff desk, and waited until the police arrived to start making reports. As soon as the police arrived, guess what? The whole other team left the facility and my team stayed. What does this tell you? Who looks like the guilty party running away from the incident?

During the time the police was there, I did not like how the situation was handled by the staff there at all. You could tell they have never dealt with a situation of this magnitude. Two things mainly caught my attention. 1) The first was them saying that there are no cameras in there. I clearly heard a cop tell one of the parents that the facility has no cameras and that they could not do anything about it. This was later made clear to me that there are cameras but the quality is not the best and they are very blurry quality recordings. Something that surprises me because every time I had an issue with a referee or a controversial call, the staff used to tell me "We will check the cameras and make a decision based off what we see." What cameras? If so, the blurry cameras that you can barely regonize what happened? What a joke. In this situation, it is a huge player safety issue. Them having no cameras or crappy ones, says a lot. They do not really care what goes on in there. 2) One of the police officers asked the scorekeeper, "So what happened, tell me." And guess what the answer was? The scorekeeper answered, with me standing right next to them, "Ask him first and see what he says, and then I will answer." What kind of non sense is that? Keep in mind, this scorekeeper in particular never pays attention to the games and is on the cellphone or not paying attention a lot. 

On April 29, 2017 I got a call from a staff member at Soccer Central stating that both teams would get the exact same punishment. A 6-month suspension for every player that was present that game and a $200 Team Fine, with one of my players getting a 1 year suspension and $50 individual fine. I was quick to want an explanation for the charges and in short, I never could get a justified answer from neither the night staff or league director/managers. 

How could both teams be getting the exact same punishment? Only a few players were even involved from my team and in self defense. What were they supposed to do? Get hit and just stand there? 

I was eager to see the footage and never was shown the footage. To this day, I am still skeptical any good footage was even recorded.

A few days after, I went personally to talk to the league director and I could tell she did not like me talking to her in person, as I left her speechless many times. I brought up things like: Did the cameras get any footage? Did she know about the staff ripping my reports and telling me it was done because that's what was best for me? Staff not suspending or fining friends and relatives? If she knew about other people getting their punishments removed or reduced? If she was going to ban the 2 people who kicked me and my team mate on the head while we were on the ground? (She said yes to this one, but they still go play at the facility.) and the main question I could get no clear answer to is, Why and how were both teams getting the same punishment when the other team clearly were the instigators and the ones looking to do us harm?  I left this unannounced meeting even more angry because I got no straight answers to any of my main concerns. 

After that, while on the 6 month suspension, I kept emailing and wanting answers. I was tired of getting poor treatment from the staff and managers and I wanted to get the owners attention, because I felt like the main reason this was not resolved properly was because poor administration. That is why SO MANY people have had issues, and if nobody raises their voice and takes action, this will keep on going, just like it has for years. 

In my situation, I feel like Soccer Central is stealing my money and suspended us unfairly for 6 months. I told them time and time again, I would have absolutely no problem paying both suspension and fine if I 100% knew my team was responsible for this. But the fact that this situation was not fairly dealt with, and I was forced to paying a fine I did not owe, I decided to take action myself. 

After the 6 month suspension was up, they forced me to pay the $200 Team Fine and after I did, I told them I was going to ask a lawyer if this treatment was legal. They immediately refunded my payment, and told me I could not make a team there nor play there until this was taken care of. I did look into taking legal action but all I got were quotes for thousands of dollars, which is not worth it to me in this case. That is why I decided to do this instead, and let my situation out there, hopefully motivating all others with unfair treatment from Soccer Central staff to tell their story as well as give their opinion on mine.

I have the Facility Rules that were in effect during the time of this incident and I could not find anywhere in rules where it stated what actions lead to a $200 Team Fine and 6 month suspension. Therefore, I find these punishments to be illegal and invalid. How are you as a business, going to just make up punishments and apply them to customers with no real explanation? They told me they applied the Zero Tolerance Rule which states this: "Zero Tolerance Policy: Anyone fighting within the arena or on the facility property will be subject to termination of membership, and may face civil or criminal charges." Half of my team had no involvement at all, and the ones involved were not fighting, they were defending themselves from an attack. If that is considered fighting, then why give the whole team an unfair punishment? 

 

WHAT DO I WANT FROM THIS?

I want EVERY PERSON with unfair treatment at this facility to SHARE this for me and comment below your negative situations at Soccer Central Indoor Facility in Watsonville, CA. I want this movement to become LOUD so they can see we, the customers who PAY TO PLAY THERE are tired of the same old mistreatment. Once the ball is rolling, I will personally email this petition to local media, newspapers and any others I feel should look into the matter. You do not have to be a local to sign this petition. If you agree with this mistreatment and abuse to customers, please sign and share this as well. I want FAIR punishments in my case and FAIR treatments to all customers who pay their hard earned money to play at the facility. 

Some other things that I have seen while being a customer at Soccer Central: 1)Referees letting injuries happen to players, because they lack training. 2)Staff family making teams in there that is a huge conflict of interest. 90% of the time they are champions? 3)The night staff need training, better customer service skills. 4)Cameras should be definitely updated for player and staff safety concerns and to have clear footage of major incidents that occur in the facility. 5) Administration does not know how to deal with big incidents in there, like in my situation. I personally think that place needs a whole new administration and staff, that's just me though. 6) Favoritism has to end at the facility. 

I doubt I could sit down and talk to the owner of the facility, but that would be my ultimate goal with this. Soccer is the biggest passion of mine and Soccer Central was where it became my tradition every week to go and have fun and play the sport I love with friends and family. Now I do not intend to play there at all nor make teams there in the future. With this, I still hope to see CHANGE.