--March 2022

Dear CR United and Northern Lights Soccer Club Members:

In 2020, the board of directors of CR United and NLSC voted to join forces as we tried to navigate through the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Out of this vote came the Unite the North partnership. As we partnered, our goals were to keep our clubs viable, affordable and offer opportunities for all levels of players to play competitive soccer. This partnership has helped our clubs achieve these goals.  As your boards collaborate on the future direction of our partnership, these goals continue to be core objectives. 

We, as community focused clubs, have watched the landscape of soccer in the state of Minnesota rapidly change over the last five years.  We have seen formations of non community based super clubs outside our communities make youth soccer unaffordable for families with a focus on the elite level players and teams. Our partnership rejects that model and we are working hard to preserve an affordable community focused soccer program that focuses on high quality training and personal development both on and off the field for players of all levels.

With the unification of our clubs for our competitive programming over the last couple years, we have grown stronger than we ever were as single organizations. We now have members from over 32 communities. We have been able to field teams of similar talent that are competing at their proper level. The synergy between the directors of coaching for each club has provided great opportunities for players to be exposed to a vast amount of soccer knowledge and experience.  

As we look to the future, we believe continuing and strengthening our clubs’ partnership has great potential for our communities and soccer in our area. Because of this, and the ever changing landscape of MN soccer, CR United and Northern Lights Soccer Clubs believe our partnership needs a name and identity not just a slogan.  

We are excited to introduce North United SC.

We will continue to collaborate to provide affordable, high quality and competitive soccer in 2022 and long into the future. Our competitive program partnership will operate under the new brand of North United Soccer Club. Operationally we will continue to function as we are now. As we prepare for the 2022-2023 season you will see a new logo, colors, website and new uniforms that represents a new beginning. This new beginning will be guided by principles our clubs have always had in common; community pride, quality training and competitiveness.

Each clubs’ rich history in our communities is important to its boards and members. This will not be not a full merger at this time but rather a focus on strengthening the foundation of the partnership we formed in 2020 with a unified brand we can all be proud of. We look forward to what the future holds for North United SC. Please follow, like and share our clubs’ new social media pages as we roll out our partnerships new brand.  

Meghan Rietschel  NLS President                        

Nick Kopp  CR United President