They have been saying this since the 80's. IMO soccer has absolutely nothing to do with the decline in high school football numbers.
I come from a community which was the opposite. Manteno's fall boys sports were golf and cross-country up through the 1980's. As a result, the CC team developed into a powerhouse because it was the premier boys sport at Manteno.
In the late 80's, a group of parents approached the school board about starting soccer. The board told them to prove that the community had support for the sport and that there was a demand - ie create a youth league and be successful. Manteno Youth Soccer Association started, and it became wildly successful fairly quickly. It absorbed the communities of Peotone, Beecher, Grant Park and Momence as well...Over 1000 kids got into the program every year, probably 300+ were Manteno kids. Soccer quickly was started at the high school, and it was the primary boys sport at MHS by the late 90's...MHS was still mid-300's enrollment then, and they could field a full varsity and soph soccer team. Girls soccer has put a number of state trophies into the Manteno trophy case...
Mid-90's a group of parents went to the school board wanting to see the school start football. School board took the same approach, prove the demand...Some doubted it would happen because so many kids were playing soccer. Dedicated group of parents went out and pulled it off...Manteno and Peotone in fact both started their youth football leagues at about the same time (Peotone HS started football in the early 70's, did a school flag league 5-6 grade in late 70's & early 80's). Both attracted enough kids from the MYSA monster to become established youth leagues. Couple years of the youth league convinced the Manteno school board to start football...freshman schedule in 2000, F & JV in 2001, full I-8 varsity in 2002.
Starting youth football in Manteno & Peotone at the same time put a dent in the MYSA, but it never put the soccer folks in fear of folding. The soccer league had gotten so big that it became homeless a couple of times, to the point it told the other towns they had to find space in their towns for teams to practice and play games. In fact, soccer basically forced football to enter into a lease for open property at the Veterans Home to develop their own complex...
What we have found is rarely do kids who play football quit to play soccer. Kids will start in soccer and move to football when they get older, however...Coaches can look at the 5th grade level and see which kids are likely to play football and which will play soccer and plan appropriately - because 7/8 grade kids sometimes choose to just play school baseball and not play football or soccer.
Conversely, Wilmington is a football town first. The Bobcats youth league has a beautiful complex. The soccer league has a patch of grass behind a nursing home...I've been to several Wildcat purple & white nights and seen soccer teams with only 12 or 13 kids total...barely enough to field a team, guaranteeing every player a varsity letter.
I've said it before - soccer is a much bigger threat to cross country than it is to football...
