The Future Is Built in Public

Why community events matter and why getting them off the ground shouldn’t be this hard.

Here’s a secret about building a free-to-play soccer movement: it’s not just about the soccer.

It’s about the events, the gatherings. The public moments where people come together, move together, build something together. Whether it’s a weekly futsal night or a watch party, these aren’t just nice extras. They’re the core.

Community events are how movements get seen, how neighborhoods get knitted together, and how systems change starts to feel real and visible.

And yet making them happen is often harder than it needs to be.

The Hidden Friction

If you’ve ever tried to organize a public event in an American city, you know. Finding space, securing permits, negotiating with facility managers… it’s a gauntlet. Sometimes it feels like the system is built to say no by default.

You’re not just fighting for time slots or field access. You’re pushing against entrenched ideas about who gets to use public space, and for what purpose.

We’ve felt it firsthand here in Cleveland. Whether it’s negotiating for futsal court time or trying to host an open-access tournament, there’s always hidden friction. Usually in the form of bureaucratic speed bumps from power holders who don’t see public play as a priority.

But Here’s the Thing: It Shouldn’t Be This Hard

If we believe in civic health, public life, and community power we should make it easy for people to gather. We should treat open play and public events like essential infrastructure not optional programming.

The future of equitable sport doesn’t just live in academies or clubs. It lives in parks, courts, and pop-up pitches. It lives in events anyone can show up to without an invite, a fee, or a membership card.

It’s not about being anti-institution. It’s about being pro-access.

Why Events Matter

Events change the game because they change the narrative. They make joy visible and show what’s possible outside the pay-to-play bubble.

And in a city like Cleveland, that visibility matters. It creates momentum. It builds the case for investing in permanent infrastructure. It forces power holders to reckon with the fact that people do want these spaces… they just haven’t been offered them before.

What We’re Building Next

At the Cleveland Soccer Foundation, community events aren’t an afterthought: they’re central to the mission. They’re not just “nice to have” moments between programming cycles. They are the programming. They’re the sparks that ignite imagination, invite new people into the fold, and make this work visible in a world that too often overlooks it.

We’re not just planning more weekly futsal nights. We’re building a public calendar of joyful, low-barrier, high-energy soccer activations across the city: pick-up series, night tournaments, youth-adult family play days, street soccer exhibitions, cultural soccer festivals. Think block party meets training ground… accessible, creative, community-centered events that make soccer feel like it belongs to everyone.

But beyond the event logistics, we’re also developing the muscle memory of public gathering. We’re training community members to become organizers, stewards, and co-hosts of this movement. Because this doesn’t scale by central command, it scales through trust and distributed leadership. We want to build a model where community soccer is something that happens, not something that always needs a gatekeeper to approve it.

This is what it looks like to build public infrastructure without waiting for permission. It’s not just about kicking a ball. It’s about reclaiming space, shifting power, and building civic life that’s joyful, consistent, and deeply human.