The most common term youth soccer has complicated is the the definition of a “division.” This is how we define it at TourneyCentral.
A division is a group of teams that advance to win a trophy or an award at the end of pool play, quarters, semis and a final.
Many leagues and events divide groups into age-only divisions, then levels or flights. These are irrelevant within the tournament division definition.
Let me explain,
As a soccer tournament, you don’t know how many teams will apply, what their age distribution, their skill level, etc. will be. You put out the invitation, do your marketing, set up the Application Groups with ages, fees and formats but at the deadline close, you create the tournament with the teams you have, not the teams you may want.
Sometimes, you will have a glut of teams in one age group necessitating multiple “flights” like Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc. within an “age group.” Sometimes you may have to combine teams of different age groups to create a division, such as HS teams U15+ into a U19 division.
Regardless of how you combine teams, when you set up that group that will play together and ultimately compete against each other for the final award (trophy, medal, bragging rights, etc.) that is a DIVISION.
Once you place teams into a TOURNAMENT DIVISION, there are no “age group” divisions, only tournament divisions. You may use age as a factor for seeding and playing a team up (never down.. that would be against the rules) but there are no age group “divisions.”
Also, we do not support “cross division” play, for example, a highly seeded U12BoysSilver will cross and play low seed U12BoysGold. If you need this type of play, you should then place ALL the U12Boys into one division, but multiple groups. Cross-over is defined as a cross play to another GROUP (A, B, C, D, etc) during pool play, like a 2 of 3 group.