Isn't this how European football (soccer) leagues operate?

No. There are two basic types of youth football teams, small ones run by volunteers and those affiliated with a local pro club. Parents usually pay around 1-200 a year to cover expenses or sometimes nothing at all.

It's not a for profit enterprise. If someone invests it's for access to promising new players not for money from parents. Decisions get made based on talent, discipline, personality and sometimes your parents connections but almost never how rich you are. Some coaches do take bribes but they keep it on the low. American sports do it openly and it's almost universal.

no. In Europe, parents do not pay. The nyt actually covered this about 15 years ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/magazine/06Soccer-t.html

The most relevant bit to your question:

> Ajax operates a fleet of 20 buses to pick up the boys halfway through their school day and employs 15 teachers to tutor them when they arrive. Parents pay nothing except a nominal insurance fee of 12 euros a year, and the club covers the rest — salaries for 24 coaches, travel to tournaments, uniforms and gear for the players and all other costs associated with running a vast facility. Promising young players outside the Ajax catchment area usually attend academies run by other Dutch professional clubs, where the training is also free, as it is in much of the rest of the soccer-playing world for youths with pro potential. (The U.S., where the dominant model is “pay to play” — the better an athlete, the more money a parent shells out — is the outlier.)