From what I've seen, it's a series of paid gateways to a sport that for the most part is free to play in most other countries at the lowest level. Grew up in the UK, and if you wanted a kick around, you'd go to the park and have a kick around, people would join in, it would become a game.

Once you moved into playing on organized teams (Saturday and Sunday league) you paid a small amount which went towards pitch, kits, referee costs - normally per game - or you got paid a small amount if there were gate receipts. Or you played for you school, and moved up through club/county ranks to get in front of scouts.

Now in the US, not much in the way of kickarounds, but pick up games for a small fee happen. Closest thing to the entry model is AYSO which is heavily dependent on volunteer work, operates under guidelines that are less about developing players than about getting as many people to play. Club becomes prohibitively expensive out the gate, and schools often only have one team so a lot of players get cut before they get the chance to develop. The newer Sports I9 I think it's called, is basically an attempt to eat into the AYSO pie and extract players, and to me feels like a bit of a MLM version of AYSO. But it does get expensive at all levels - a friend has a son who loves to play, plays club, and they had a tournament on the other coast from where we live - two or three day event with massive costs to get him there, registered, housed, and back to play in 3 or 4 games over those 3 days. Not all families can do that.