A few texts for today’s podcast:
This will start out on a personal level, but bear with me — it’ll get to big-picture stuff. And we’ll talk about the desperate need to change a few things in U.S. soccer and at U.S. Soccer.
I think the state of the soccer “change” movement can be summed up (pardon the SUM pun) in three conversations I had this weekend and another one in which I did not participate.
One: Someone on Twitter was surprised to learn I am not paid by MLS or SUM.
This person apologized.
I asked why he made the assumption in the first place.
“Likely because I’ve seen folks attribute that to you on Twitter.”
Not the first time I’ve had a conversation that follows this path:
For those of you who are new, here’s my restatement of facts (skip to the next bold type if you know all this):
Two: Respected people in soccer continue to associate with and even amplify anonymous Twitter accounts that regularly slander people.
I’ve actually learned who runs one such account. Not a well-known name, but it’s hilarious that it’s someone who has played and coached for “Christian” schools. I guess they’re soft on that whole “bearing false witness” thing, though the school’s site does say good people of the Bible should not engage in “profanity” and “lying.” They list those two right before “homosexual behavior.”
When I spoke with a particular supporter of such accounts, someone I certainly respect, I got a deflection to a conspiracy theory involving Kyle Martino.
Which was far from the strangest thing I heard along those line this weekend …
Three: Someone in a position of responsibility in U.S. soccer (not the Federation) lumped together most of the presidential candidates and a few other folks into a conspiracy theory.
This theory — again, offered by someone in a position of power whose actions certainly affect others — included the following people:
I asked for proof. I was told this person had been advised not to offer proof at this time.
But this person, apparently in an effort to demonstrate insider knowledge, pointed out to me that he/she said back in December how everything was a setup.
For Kathy Carter.
Who didn’t win.
Four: The conversation in which I didn’t participate involved the consternation that Rocco Commisso was unable to get an audience with U.S. Soccer for his “proposal.”
Hey, it’s tough to get an audience with U.S. Soccer. Much tougher than it should be. Believe me, I feel your pain. I won’t go into details here, but I’m starting to think it’d be easier to get an interview with Prince that it would be to get some specific information I’m seeking now. And yes, I’m aware that Prince has passed away. (Dammit.)
But when NY Cosmos owner Rocco Commisso told U.S. Soccer he wanted a meeting to discuss a possible $250 million investment (expandable to $500 million when others join in) if they let him have 10 years to build up the NASL, the response should’ve been the following …
Dear Mr. Commisso,
Thank you for your letter. Unfortunately, we are not able to discuss anything involving the NASL or the Pro League Standards while we are engaged in legal action, some of which you initiated, on each of those entities.
If you would like to make a significant investment in an existing league (NPSL, USL, UPSL) or a newly proposed league (NISA), you are welcome to discuss the matter with those leagues.
Unfortunately, U.S. Soccer dragged this along, letting Commisso and his apologists dictate the narrative.
Which brings us to an important point …
The Federation needs change.
When the U.S. Soccer delegates who had just elected Carlos Cordeiro left the room in Orlando a few months ago, the path forward for changing the federation seemed clear.
Voters had rejected the anointed MLS/SUM candidate, Kathy Carter, in favor of someone who masterfully claimed the “outsider, but with experience and willingness to delegate to experts” ground. A few delegates spoke from the floor, urging the “change” candidates to stay involved. The soccer community was plugged into all the issues on all levels — youth, adult, pro, even a few words about the oft-neglected Paralympic, futsal and beach soccer sectors.
Stodgy old U.S. Soccer had gotten a wakeup call. Fans demanded change after missing the men’s World Cup. Parental ire over misguided youth soccer mandates had finally reached the Board of Directors. Every issue was in play:
I’d add one issue that has popped up since the election: Figuring out the role of state associations when youth and adult leagues are crossing state lines and ODP is being devalued.
And then … it all stopped. Mostly.
We have a few exceptions. The Chattanooga summit failed to unite NPSL, NISA and UPSL, let alone all the other factions in U.S. soccer, but at least it brought a few good issues to the fore with some rational discussions. “Change” candidate Kyle Martino jumped to the board of Street Soccer USA to do some of the grassroots work he had hoped to do as president. Surely hundreds of youth coaches and administrators have been energized to do more work at the local level.
But the national discourse is firmly in the hands of a different group of people. I’m not just talking about the usual toxic stew on Twitter. That’s been around longer than Twitter itself, and it hasn’t done a bit of good. (If anything, it’s hardened attitudes against promotion/relegation from people who otherwise would’ve been ambivalent or receptive.) I’m talking about the people who actually have influence.
And what we’ve seen from a lot of camps are purely symbolic gestures. Yes, that includes Commisso’s proposal, which I’ve often called, in Seinfeld-speak, an “unvitation.” He had to know there was no way USSF would or could meet those demands, and now he gets to claim (as Silva did before him) that the Federation has turned down easy money out of sheer stubbornness. A similarly PR-related proposal came up at the Annual General Meeting — more precisely, at the USSF Board meeting the day before the National Council meeting in Orlando. John Motta proposed cutting registration fees, currently $2 per adult and $1 per youth player, in half. That wasn’t going to fly, given that many presidential candidates had their own plans in mind (evening out the fees between adults and youth players may come up again). Sure, Sunil Gulati was unnecessarily condescending in his response, but the result was never going to change.
Is there a chance that soccer’s would-be reformers are self-sabotaging? In some cases, maybe. Much of the public discourse is designed more for status (as superior thinker or as victim) than for solutions.
Perhaps that’s not a surprise. For generations, being a soccer fan in the United States has meant rebelling against the norm. We are the “other” — by choice. A lot of soccer fans are like those tedious people we 40-somethings knew in college who used to be into R.E.M. but thought they sold out with Automatic for the People.
So as soccer has grown more popular, that hipster “outsider” status is harder to achieve. And we all love victim status as well, which means we need an oppressor. Generations of soccer neglect are harder to personalize than That Guy Who Said Something You Don’t Like on Twitter. Or That Guy Who Had More Impact in the USSF Presidential Election Than You’d Like.
I can’t tell other people how to move forward. I’ve tried, perhaps too hard and too harshly. All I can tell you is how I plan to proceed:
If I had any pull at SiriusXM, I’d lobby to get Eric Wynalda back on the air. If I had any pull at other media outlets, I’d suggest more investigations on where the “change” agenda stands now. And if I had any pull at U.S. Soccer … where do I begin?
If you want change, pick a spot and get to work.
On the heels of Monday’s Commisso-palooza, NASL interim commissioner for life Rishi Sehgal presented a more palatable take on the issues, speaking with Nipun Chopra at SocTakes
Sehgal is not Commisso. He doesn’t have the Trump-style tendency to laud himself in easily refuted terms (e.g., “I’m the only investor in this country who played soccer”). He actually listens when people point out evidence that contradicts his claims. Where Commisso apparently buys whole-hog into the Twitter-troll conspiracy theories that MLS is conspiring with the NFL to limit soccer’s growth in this country, Sehgal gives credit where credit is due. (He says, “Nobody is trying to take away the great things MLS has done,” which isn’t literally true but shows some willingness to work with existing parties.) In short: You can have a reasonable conversation with Sehgal.
And his interview doesn’t have anything I’ve flagged as outright wrong. That’s good. I hate to think that’s the bar we’ve set in sports and sociopolitical discourse in general these days, but that’s a start.
But for the benefit of soccer newbies, including those who are looking to invest (attention, Chattanooga summit participants), let’s put a few things in proper context. Just as Ranting Soccer Dad intends to give soccer parents the information they need to make good decisions about their kids, this space can be used to give soccer investors the information they need to make good decisions with their money — especially when all soccer fans have a stake in seeing things done wisely.
Going through the Sehgal interview …
(T)he end game is to help the NASL and to bring the NASL back to the pitch in 2019. So the investment of $250 million of his own money, and then lead a fundraising effort to raise another $250 million which will be used to support the NASL.
You can make a compelling argument that we as the U.S. soccer community need to preserve and enhance multiple divisions in U.S. pro soccer. (Or we could have 300 pro clubs, all in one division, and decide the champion with an NCAA-style tournament, but that’s another rant.) It’s much more difficult to make a compelling argument that we need to preserve the NASL, a brand name that has never made sense for what 21st century NASL owners have tried to accomplish — even as that group of owners cycled in and out rather quickly.
First, go back and re-read the timeline of the neo-NASL. You can also get another take from former NASL employee Kartik Krishnaiyer. It’ll take time, but I promise it’s worth it. And it’s necessary, if you really want to understand the issues here.
Then ask yourself — why preserve this brand? Why not merge with the NPSL to form a new league structure within which it’ll be easy to do promotion/relegation? Why not work with Peter Wilt’s NISA?
Honestly, the NASL’s intention of building a pro/rel pyramid has often come across as an insincere play to the Twitterati. Just see the hostility that broke out when the NPSL suggested joining forces with the NASL in 2015. And today’s NASL apologists are telling me Commisso’s literally unbelievable suggestion to have pro/rel “no later than the 2020 season” was just a suggestion.
Indeed, that suggestion comes after a list of five bullet points in the letter that sound pretty much like the reform ideas of 6-7 presidential candidates in this year’s USSF election. Aside from an anti-poaching clause that surely wouldn’t survive the slightest legal challenge, they’re somewhat reasonable. It’s just that (A) other people have made the same points and (B) they’re not at all relevant to what Commisso is seeking (10 years to build the NASL without pesky standards in the way).
(Actually, hold up a second. He’s not seeking 10 years to build the NASL. He’s seeking 10 more years on top of the work that’s been done since the Big Split in 2009. Commisso’s account of the USSF-NASL dispute tends to start when Commisso bought the Cosmos less than 16 months ago, but the league has been striving for stability for a long time.)
So on that note, let’s look at another of Sehgal’s statements …
I understand that sometimes people have problems with the way certain people speak. I get that. But pay attention to the message.
Part of the message, again, is general “change” ideology that isn’t unique. Other parts of the message are NFL conspiracy talk, which also isn’t unique (or worth hearing). Or pro/rel, a banner that others (say, Wilt) have made a better case for carrying.
That really leaves the message that the NASL — the brand name — is worth saving. See above.
Sehgal himself actually has more of a message. I’m curious to hear more about modular stadiums. I’m skeptical — if cheap stadiums were such a great thing, the Crew wouldn’t be in danger of moving, and you still have to find suitable land to hold a full-sized field and 20,000 seats (or more, given the conspiracy talk I recently saw suggesting MLS was limiting soccer in this country by building small stadiums). I suppose the cost of converting the Maryland SoccerPlex’s main field to a 20,000-seater would be in the low eight figures at worst, but the neighborhood folks would never let you do it, and you’d be stuck in traffic for eons. All that said, I’d like to hear the advantages of this.
Back to Sehgal …
I read the Twitter (laughs), and I see the nonsense out there and much of it is a waste. A lot of people calling this or MP Silva’s previous offer a publicity stunt — that’s nonsense.
Hi, Rishi, thanks for reading. Good to see you in Orlando. Please hit me up to give me more detail on modular stadiums.
But the definitive word on the Silva offer was written not by me or anyone else on Twitter but by Graham Parker, who also wrote about the Commisso offer Monday. (Coincidentally, Parker was writing for the same two publications that are my current freelance clients these days.)
Here’s Parker on the Silva offer:
That assumes this is a good-faith offer in the first place. The timing, outlandish scale and key contingencies of the offer seem more a shot across the bow than genuine desire to work together. …
The dissonance between the proposed scale and the current reality is key here. Glancing from the number $4 billion to the current realities of the NASL puts me in mind of looking at the Photoshop renderings of the New York Cosmos proposed stadium at Belmont while sitting in the cramped press box at Hofstra Stadium. It’s neither an insult to the Cosmos nor a failure of imagination to find it impossible to visualize a path between the suburban, college-astroturfed reality and the gleaming pixelated spaceship being proposed.
(Also noteworthy on the Silva offer — it’s funny that so many people who have a problem with Soccer United Marketing would see nothing wrong with the marketing rights to Major League Soccer being in the hands of one club owner who would want his club to be in the mix. That’s not a conflict of interest? Also — note that Silva’s company handles NFL rights in Europe, which will make the conspiracy theorists’ heads spin. And in that same paragraph, the second-to-last of Parker’s piece, you’ll notice MLS made some international breakthroughs after Silva’s tenure as its international-rights broker ended, something you can also read in Sports Business Daily.)
Here’s Parker on Commisso’s offer:
Like fellow NASL owner Riccardo Silva’s offer of $4bn to MLS provided they adopt a model of promotion and relegation, this tactic could feel like an offer made to be refused. This latest sum targeting NASL is more modest, but just as pointed a symbolic challenge to the existing ecology of soccer in the US. In his latest letter, Commisso cites Anschutz, Hunt and Kraft and claims that “All I am asking is that USSF afford me the same opportunity to help my league grow.”
But his price for investing would come at the cost of Cordeiro acknowledging and addressing what Commisso sees as the wrongful nature of the current structural and financial relationship between US Soccer and MLS – something Commisso must know there is little political will to do from the current regime. So he’s left with his law suits and to paint a public picture of what he thinks could be, in the hope that one or both forces a concession.
So I think the notion that these offers are more about PR than practicality is more than the mere ranting of people on Twitter who haven’t done the heavy lifting on the reporting end.
In this case, I haven’t done the heavy lifting of Parker or Brian Straus, the hardest-working man in soccer media. But this reminds me of a story in which I did the heavy lifting for months. It was another story of a man with a big ego, passion and a lot of money.
Dan Borislow.
Borislow didn’t kill Women’s Professional Soccer, which was teetering on the brink before he got involved. But it’s difficult to imagine, even with benefit of hindsight, how it could’ve survived with him. As with Commisso, it wasn’t just the tone of what he said. It was what he said itself. It was a refusal to work with those in authority, much less abide by their decision.
I’d like to think Commisso is as complex a man as Borislow was. As you can tell from my remembrance, I was ultimately glad that I got to know Borislow, even though part of my job (and I was actually getting paid for this — thanks, ESPN) was to fact-check his accusations. I’ve gotten to know his brother over the years as well, and I always appreciate his take from the grassroots of youth soccer.
Let’s give Commisso the benefit of the doubt here. Let’s say, with the help of Sehgal and some of the others who are keeping the NASL and the Cosmos afloat, we can find a role for him and his money.
Here’s an idea …
Put it in the NPSL. (He can’t buy the NPSL because team owners have equal shares, but perhaps he could put it into seed money for a fully professional top division.)
Again, an NASL-NPSL merger might not be as simple as it sounds, even though Cosmos VP Joe Barone is also the chairman of the NPSL board and VP of the NPSL’s Brooklyn Italians. (And even though all MLS franchise-owned USL teams are ineligible for the Open Cup, no one complains when Cosmos B faces Brooklyn. Go figure.)
But imagine what could be gained here. The NPSL, which already has dozens of teams, could build up into the pro ranks. We could get a clear sign that something new is being built rather than propping up the remains of the twice-failed NASL.
My sense so far, unfortunately, is that Commisso may be quite interested in talking but not so interested in listening. And those conversations never amount to much.
I’m not going to devote a lot of my own time to reporting on and analyzing today’s revelation that New York Cosmos owner Rocco Commisso is pledging $250 million to, in essence, prop up the NASL as Phil Anschutz, Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft propped up MLS in the early oughts. The ratio of “important stuff going on” to “number of people reporting on it” is higher in youth soccer than it is in pro soccer, so I’m sticking with youth stuff in the near future.
But you should check out the two big pieces on this today …
And Jason Davis will be chatting with Commisso at 1 p.m. ET on SiriusXM FC.
I received the letters at the heart of the matter this morning, just as they were tweeted out.
https://twitter.com/nathenmcvittie/status/990938195289366529
So you can read all that and get up to speed yourself. And you can draw your own conclusions.
And your conclusion will probably veer toward one or the other extreme, because I can’t help thinking this is political grandstanding that assumes the two calcified opposing stances on the NASL will remain intact. Most reactions will either be “See, there’s money to be made if USSF will just do what the NASL and pro/rel people want!” or “Great, yet another vaporware offer by a bunch of people who don’t even really want change but just want to inflate their own egos.”
One reason for that — as I peek through my email and sort through these attachments, I see Commisso included the danged “Fricker Plan,” which Steve Holroyd put in proper context nearly three years ago but is still trotted out every few months like some long-lost piece of Scripture uncovered in the dust of Bethlehem. (“And verily did Bethlehem Steel trot forth upon the pitch …”) Commisso is either unaware that we’ve all already discussed all this or just doesn’t care.
But while a certain amount of jaded pessimism is justified here, we shouldn’t be completely cynical and dismissive. Can anything good come of this communication?
Maybe.
Several managements ago, the NASL’s goal was to forge its own path. Former commissioner Bill Peterson often used a golf analogy, saying the NASL was focusing not on enmity with MLS but was intent on “playing its own ball.” And that path was to build a new way forward, eventually creeping toward a pro/rel pyramid, attracting investment regardless of divisional sanctioning.
Commisso is more or less offering to restart that process here. He says he’ll invest $250 million of his own money and is confident he’ll have a group putting forth $500 million. Forbes pegs Commisso’s “real-time net worth” at just shy of $4 billion, and other estimates have it higher than that, so he can indeed deliver on that.
Forming a pyramid in the “lower” divisions and seeing if that catches fire isn’t the worst idea in the world. It could eventually make MLS take notice and make a deal to join forces.
Now, in addition, Commisso pledges to buy USSF media rights for a higher sum than Soccer United Marketing is paying. I’m a bit more skeptical of that.
As The Guardian notes, this might be a PR stunt. “Like fellow NASL owner Riccardo Silva’s offer of $4bn to MLS provided they adopt a model of promotion and relegation, this tactic could feel like an offer made to be refused. This latest sum targeting NASL is more modest, but just as pointed a symbolic challenge to the existing ecology of soccer in the US.” (My original headline here, before I went in a more productive direction — “Rocco Commisso offers to give the NASL the most expensive Viking funeral in history.”)
And Commisso insists upon promotion/relegation “no later than the 2020 season.” Even a lot of the more obstinate, factually impaired Twitterati call for a 10-year plan. Silva commissioned a much-ballyhooed report from Deloitte that pro/rel zealots have held up as the definitive study despite a couple of flaws, and even that report says the following:
The opening of the US club soccer pyramid could present a number of significant risks. However, through careful consideration these could be effectively mitigated. …
(S)occer is now full of examples of effective regulation controlling costs (as is
common in US sports), such as UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations. The
implementation of cost control measures would be critical considerations for any
league. …Clearly those who have invested in a league over time and/or through the payment of a franchise fee may feel that relegation represents a major new risk which would
undermine and unnecessarily jeopardise this investment. A managed transition with properly structured promotion and relegation could have upsides that could offset this loss and more importantly be of benefit to all stakeholders in the longer term. Equally the implementation of new equity structures and revenue distribution models for leagues may further offset and protect against any perceived or real losses.
Does Commisso’s plan address such concerns? (Jason, could you ask him?)
Carlos Cordeiro’s response is, as you’d expect, quite formal but also accommodating. Cordeiro himself is tied up with a World Cup bid that is anything but a slam dunk at this point, but he does want to open discussion. He’d like to know more about Commisso’s consortium, of course.
Commisso responds that he’s disappointed that Cordeiro can’t find time to meet, suggesting this proposal is really important and all that World Cup stuff can wait. (Is that too harsh a summary? It’s all linked above — read as you like and make up your own mind.)
So let’s consider a few things:
1. Commisso basically wants the same opportunity as MLS had to build itself up. One problem with that: Any soccer federation has a compelling interest in making sure its country has one substantive men’s professional league. What soccer federation has a compelling interest in bringing about two substantive men’s professional leagues?
2. Commisso, like many a politician, continues to make pronouncements that simply are not based in reality. One such comment to The Guardian: “I think of the rich investors in this country, I’m pretty unique in the sense that, besides the mind that I have, I’m the only one that played soccer.” Wrong. Meet Clark Hunt. The LAFC ownership group includes one of the best players of all time. (She surely doesn’t have as much money as Commisso, but wouldn’t it be nice if accomplished soccer players made as much as media moguls?) The Vancouver Whitecaps group includes Steve Nash, who’s better known for basketball but I’d bet was a better player than Commisso in his day. I haven’t done the research to know whether the owners in KC, Houston or New York ever played, but do you think Commisso has done it?
3. Would Jacksonville’s Robert Palmer be one of the investors in a Commisso consortium? I wonder how that would fit with Palmer’s current plans on the lower end of the pyramid.
4. We want to move forward, right? Why are we propping up the twice-tarnished NASL brand name?
So we have some interesting conversations. But I’m not sure Commisso, having shown a tendency to sue everyone short of MLS mascots when he doesn’t get his way, is someone USSF really wants to deal with at this point.
Here’s what I’m going to suggest. Start with this tweet:
So step forward, Mr. TV Exec. Maybe MLS would rather deal with you than Commisso. Maybe you can get MLS and Robert Palmer together to build a pyramid that’s based in reality, with a logical transition plan that addresses the concerns of the Deloitte report.
As cynical as this post may sound, I’m an optimist. I think we’re getting closer to having an open-ish system that would include all the benefits of a pro/rel pyramid — primarily opportunity for all. But you’re not going to get it by storming into Soccer House waving around your wallet and a half-baked plan while insisting upon firing everyone who ever worked with the NFL. You’re going to get it by getting everyone on the same page and talking.
And listening.
(This post has been updated three times. I blame Zoidberg.)
After a few weeks of post-election doom and gloom on Twitter, it’s refreshing to see the “change” movement in U.S. Soccer moving forward with something constructive.
The Summit for American Soccer in Chattanooga asked a lot of interesting questions:
And the questions showed how quickly things have progressed. Consider that, as of a couple of weeks ago, Jacksonville Armada owner Robert Palmer was under the impression that the USASA wasn’t an option.
https://twitter.com/rp_robertpalmer/status/966353127153815552
But it can. And that tweet was in response to me asking why they didn’t follow the lead of the ASL, which has already gone that route, albeit in more obscurity than the people at the Summit would want. (Hey, my Twitter feed is good for something!)
What was missing?
The people who could give the best answers.
A lot of intriguing people with interesting ideas were in the room. But aside from U.S. Adult Soccer president and longtime U.S. Soccer board member John Motta, there wasn’t much institutional knowledge.
(UPDATE: Chris Kivlehan informs me that John Motta wasn’t there. I did learn very late in writing this post — it’s the last paragraph of Nipun Chopra’s report — that some U.S. Soccer personnel were in attendance.
(UPDATE UPDATE: Nipun has clarified that no USSF personnel were present.)
“Good,” you might say. “We need fresh ideas.”
Sure, but knowledge is not a bad thing. Whether you consider U.S. Soccer a flawed organization or an outright enemy, nothing good can come from misunderstanding it. And it’s good to learn from people who’ve tried to do similar things in the past, such as the team owners who were involved when the USISL tried to move toward pro/rel in the past.
(By the way — the MLS/USL partnership is a relatively recent thing, and it might not be as solid as you think. Partnership efforts early in the MLS era were clumsy and quickly fell apart, and people who’ve followed the lower divisions for more than a few years will remember when the two leagues were not close. So seeking the advice of a USL/USISL/A-League team owner circa 1998 or 2005 would not be the same as calling Don Garber.)
And there was one notable absentee: Peter Wilt. The explanation I’ve received from Chattanooga FC chairman Tim Kelly, the organizer and host, is that the summit was geared toward clubs rather than leagues, so there was no need to bring in the man trying to get the third-division (for now) NISA off the ground. Other league representatives — the NPSL’s Joe Barone and a few folks from the ASL — are also club representatives. Yet they found room at the last minute for the NASL’s Rishi Sehgal to participate on a panel called “Soccer Landscape,” which seems odd.
But Wilt isn’t just some guy with a league idea that may or may not work. He’s a start-up specialist: Chicago Fire, Chicago Red Stars, Indy Eleven, indoor teams, etc. He’s also a former USSF board member. And it’s not as if he’s some tool of the “establishment” — he campaigned quite vociferously for Eric Wynalda’s presidential run.
At some point, bringing in people like Wilt and others with experience is simply due diligence. You have to do research on several issues. Having too many like-minded people with similar (and not much) experience in one room can quickly lead to unproductive groupthink. And no, having Stefan Szymanski in the room isn’t going to help — like a lot of economists, he falls prey to thinking solely in terms of economic models and ignores the historical and cultural forces that affect pro soccer as well. (See Paul Gardner’s classic column from the MLS players’ suit, where Gardner memorably shredded the testimony of a sports economist called in as an expert witness and ridiculed players who took the stand and pretended not to know that the league below England’s Premier League is below England’s Premier League.)
Let’s be clear here — the tinfoil brigade in the U.S. soccer community may be declining in influence as thoughtful new leaders like Kelly, Palmer and Dennis Crowley rise up. But it’s not gone. Consider what happened this week, thanks to a Twitter account that appears to have some influence among some of the “change” contingent’s most notable voices:
https://twitter.com/wikimls/status/973584597949837312
Which is utter nonsense. The nominees for the Hall of Fame meet specific, objective criteria that are published for all to see. (An omission from those criteria: A nominee who isn’t named on 5% of the ballots in a given year will not be on the ballot the next year. If you find someone who meets the criteria but isn’t on the ballot, that’s the likeliest explanation. The other possible explanation is incomplete records, in which case please let me know and I’ll pass it along to the folks at the Hall. Or tell them yourself. They’re not out to omit anyone.)
I don’t know if that tweet was intentionally misleading, but (A) it would be consistent with that account’s behavior in the past and (B) whoever runs it hasn’t bothered to correct or clarify the record.
These are not the people the “change” contingent wants as allies. They are trying to “change” people with slander, which never works. If you think honesty and transparency are lacking in the current soccer climate, why would you add more dishonesty from the veil of anonymity?
And those folks would be happy to hijack this movement. Consider the truck, parked outside the United Soccer Coaches convention in Philadelphia, which was intended to undermine candidates Kathy Carter and Carlos Cordeiro but may have helped get the latter elected because it was so nasty, clumsy and lacking substance.
Even those with better intentions can get caught up in attributing to malice that which can be attributed to something else. Consider this, from Chris Kivlehan’s report at Midfield Press:
While there was a sentiment to be open minded and give new USSF president Carlos Cordeiro a fair shot individually, the overall feeling toward the USSF board still heavily influenced by Sunil Gulati and Don Garber is one of skepticism. For example, a recently effort to get the New York Cosmos, Jacksonville Armada and Miami FC US Open Cup berths via the USASA was shot down according to one source at the meeting. Due to the perceived bias of the USSF board toward MLS and USL, many see investing hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars into a professional soccer club under the PLS as risky.
The U.S. Open Cup rules, for better or worse, require a team to be in good standing in a league throughout the competition. That’s why amateur club El Farolito is out this year. The same rules also ban a lot of USL teams from the competition because they’re owned by MLS owners, a rule that was passed in Spain a couple of decades ago and Germany more recently. All of those rules can be debated on their merits, but it’s not some sort of ad hoc decision to ban the Cosmos and Miami this year.
So, as with so many other aspects of U.S. soccer, what some call conspiracy actually has a more prosaic rationale.
(UPDATE: That said, the Cosmos have asked why teams have moved from the NASL to USL have been allowed into the Cup this year. Will probably update again whenever we get a response.)
The “change” movement failed in the election because voters saw too many accusations, many unfounded, and not enough experience to back up the ideas. That’s a mistake this movement needs to avoid repeating.
Frankly, the NASL failed for similar reasons. Starting from the fateful moment in which they turned away from an MLS partnership in 2012 and accelerating through several changes in management and ownership, the NASL gained more bombast and less experience. The league lost a lot of good will. Then lost a lot of teams. Then lost its D2 sanction.
And now what’s left of the NASL has gummed up the works with a couple of lawsuits. There’s no way U.S. Soccer is going to revise the Pro League Standards (or implement my pet proposal to replace the Pro League Standards with Pro Club Standards, which would be in line with the “Club >> League” philosophy we’re getting from Chattanooga) while they’re being sued. (Maybe the Chattanooga organizers invited Sehgal so they could send the message that they care about the remaining NASL clubs but not about the albatross of the NASL brand name? Maybe?)
All of which raises another question — does this group really want the backing of Riccardo Silva (Miami) and Rocco Commisso (Cosmos), who seem quite cozy in their embrace of the “burn it all down” brigade?
One more person the Chattanooga change group should consider calling in: Steven Bank, the lawyer who writes terrific explanatory pieces on the soccer law landscape. Bank’s most recent piece (linked above) throws cold water on the assumption in Chattanooga that “adopting promotion and relegation is not only the proper course for US Soccer to pursue legally …”
We should also ask what’s stopping the Chattanooga group from chatting not only with Peter Wilt’s NISA (which could theoretically be part of a pyramid they’re envisioning) but also the USL. I for one don’t think the USL is expanding with the sole purpose of taking markets away from another pro league. I think they’re expanding for the same reason the NPSL adds a couple dozen teams at a time. They want to be bigger.
So that’s a look at who was and was not in Chattanooga and why it matters. Here’s a quick look at some specifics being tossed around, thanks to some info I’ve received and a report by Chris Kivlehan at Midfield Press (and now a report by Nipun Chopra at SocTakes):
Should we form a new federation?
Apparently not. Kivlehan says that idea “was quickly put aside as a quixotic initiative unlikely to succeed in swaying FIFA.”
USSF is a large organization. It’s not about a couple of people on the board. It also includes people who are trying to build up the Open Cup, people who are really trying to dig into youth soccer’s problems, and people who are trying to secure the money it’ll take to fix both of those things. (By the same token — FIFA has good people, too. Not just the people who gave one World Cup to a doped-up dictatorship and another to a desert country building stadiums with slave labor, then look the other way when such things are brought to light. If we’re not breaking away from FIFA over the deaths of abused workers in Qatar, why break away from USSF over the Pro League Standards?)
Should we play unsanctioned professional soccer?
Look, there’s always the MASL! So far, FIFA doesn’t seem to have banned those players from FIFA-sanctioned futsal and beach soccer events.
But Kivlehan points to the problem here: “Another potential route would be to play without sanctioning from USSF, which would introduce challenges around FIFA player contracts, hiring referees for matches and would result in exclusion from the US Open Cup.”
We have enough trouble finding and keeping good referees. No need to split them between a sanctioned organization and an unsanctioned organization.
Um … many of us are still using college players …
That’s a point so many people forget. There’s a slide showing the Kingston Stockade’s financials (all open source, thanks to Dennis Crowley’s vision of ultimate transparency) that shows a couple of areas of improvement from 2016 to 2017. One constant: “Player Roster: $0.”
Some people involved with lower-division soccer insist on referring to it as “pro” or “semi-pro” or “pro-am.” Occasionally, you’ll find a professional team registered in one of these leagues. If a single college player is on that team, it’s not “pro.”
… and we want to keep travel costs down …
This might be an area where reasonable people differ with Peter Wilt, who has been known to insist travel costs aren’t as much of a barrier as people think. The Kingston slide has an exclamation point next to a line item showing “travel and hotel” cost dropping from $10,615 to $0. That’s a pretty big deal for a team that lost $36,799 in 2016.
Here’s Chris Kivlehan again:
Previously there had been talk of a multi-tier setup within NPSL, with a national level (likely consisting of the NASL teams and the 7 NPSL clubs that had NASL Letters of Intent per court documents), a full season elite amateur level for those ready for a longer schedule but not necessarily ready to go fully pro and then the traditional short season NPSL league. The momentum in this discussion shifted to a flatter, more regionalized setup to start with, but this is likely open to discussion in future meetings.
Please don’t tell anyone Dan Loney, violent slayer of pro/rel propagandists, has been saying the same thing for years.
Also note from that quote from Chris …
Are we playing summer or full-season?
Here’s a bit of disconnect within the “change” movement. Eric Wynalda insists we should all be on the English calendar to align transfer windows. The NPSL, like the WPSL, UWS and PDL, plays in the summer.
Granted, that’s a side effect of using college talent.
We need stadiums
No kidding. Everyone needs stadiums. And this is where people who’ve been through stadium-building wars (again, Peter Wilt springs to mind) would be useful to have in the conversation. D.C. United didn’t spend 22 years in RFK Stadium because they were attached to the raccoons.
Can fans own the teams?
It’s a romantic notion that has the backing of Wilt and a lot of folks within the NPSL. It may be limiting in the long run — the Bundesliga may end up doing away with group ownership so German clubs can keep up with the Premier League’s owner-oligarchs — but as long as a club can put up a reasonable performance bond for the level at which it competes, does it matter?
But as Nipun reports: “Per Kelly, the idea of supporter ownership received pushback from some of the attendees.”
That surprises me a bit.
Can we make money streaming?
Ask the NWSL folks. This is where facilities matter — the Maryland SoccerPlex, home of the Washington Spirit, has immaculate fields but wiring that doesn’t lend itself to 21st century Internetting.
MOVING FORWARD
The idea of clubs being more important than leagues is long overdue. One slide put it well: “Leagues should be thought of as networks and platforms for the promotion of its clubs.”
And the message of ending divisiveness is long overdue. U.S. soccer has spent generations beating itself up. The old ASL was huge in the 1920s and then collapsed, thanks to the Depression but also the egos of those involved.
It needs to go farther. Best practices need to be shared more widely. How did Peter Wilt build fan loyalty with the Chicago Fire? What were the early Rochester Rhinos doing well? How did Atlanta United — to the surprise of native Georgians like me — get 70,000 people in the door with a tremendous atmosphere?
Ultimately, this group and the MLS wing of U.S. Soccer need to build bridges. But until that day, calling upon the lessons of history — and calling upon those who lived them — is not a bad idea.
“North American Soccer League announces move to international calendar,” says the headline on the press release on the league’s decision to make the best of its legal limbo. The NASL will start in the fall and continue through the spring.
One problem: No matter how many people retweeted and even reported this move as a switch to the “international calendar,” there’s simply no such thing.
At least not as it relates to leagues. There is a FIFA calendar that sets dates for national team play, both friendlies and qualifiers. There is not an international calendar that says a domestic league must follow the traditional academic year.
That’s good, because otherwise, all of these countries would be out of compliance:
| Country | Population | League system |
| China | 1,388,550,000 | March-November |
| USA | 326,423,000 | March-December |
| Indonesia | 261,890,900 | April-November |
| Brazil | 208,503,000 | May-December (state leagues earlier in year) |
| Nigeria | 193,392,500 | January-September |
| Japan | 126,700,000 | February-December |
| Philippines | 105,143,000 | February-December (new league) |
| Vietnam | 93,700,000 | January-November |
| Thailand | 66,061,000 | February-November |
| Myanmar | 53,370,609 | January-September |
| South Korea | 51,446,201 | March-November |
| Kenya | 49,699,862 | February-October |
| Sudan | 40,782,742 | January-November |
| Canada | 36,982,500 | March-December |
| Malaysia | 32,359,500 | February-November |
| Uzbekistan | 32,345,000 | March-November |
| Peru | 31,488,625 | Split season, playoffs in December |
| Venezuela | 31,431,164 | Split season, playoffs in December |
| Ghana | 28,956,587 | February-October |
| Mozambique | 28,861,863 | March-November |
| Angola | 28,359,634 | February-November |
| Madagascar | 25,571,000 | August-November |
| Chinese Taipei | 23,566,853 | May-November |
| Cameroon | 23,248,044 | February-October |
| Mali | 18,542,000 | February-November |
| Kazakhstan | 18,137,300 | March-November |
| Malawi | 17,373,185 | May-December |
| Ecuador | 16,906,600 | January-December |
| Zambia | 16,405,229 | April-December |
| Zimbabwe | 14,542,235 | April-November |
| Sweden | 10,103,843 | March-November |
| Belarus | 9,495,800 | April-November |
| Tajikistan | 8,829,300 | March-November |
| Kyrgyzstan | 6,140,200 | April-October |
| Turkmenistan | 5,758,000 | March-December |
| Singapore | 5,612,300 | February-November |
| Finland | 5,509,984 | April-October |
| Norway | 5,290,288 | March-November |
| Congo | 5,260,750 | January-September |
| Ireland | 4,792,500 | February-October |
| Georgia | 3,718,200 | March-November |
| Uruguay | 3,493,205 | Split season, playoffs in December |
| Mongolia | 3,189,175 | April-September |
| Lithuania | 2,810,865 | March-November |
| Estonia | 1,352,320 | March-November |
| Iceland | 346,750 | April-September |
Sources: Soccerway (and occasional extra Googling) for league systems; Wikipedia for population. You’re welcome to click through every source at Wikipedia or find your own to check my work on the population.
I’ve omitted the smallest nations and those that have incomplete data (say, a 10-game season) at Soccerway. I’ve also omitted some South American countries whose Apertura and Clausura seasons may or may not hint at a fall-to-spring calendar — Colombia and Paraguay, for example, have an Apertura ending in June and a Clausura ending in December.
So that’s close to 3.5 billion people living under the tyranny of a non-“international” calendar. And that doesn’t include Russia, which has switched to a fall-to-spring calendar with the asterisk of a winter break lasting nearly three months.
Am I being pedantic here? Perhaps, but there’s a legitimate point here …
We should probably stop taking every single cue from a handful of counties in Europe.
I’m not going to veer into the identity politics of the raging “Costa Rica in Red Bull Arena” or “Jonathan Gonzalez proves USSF diversity problem” arguments. Nor would I suggest that the long-term survival of a U.S. league depends on syncing its calendar with Turkmenistan. (I could not find any evidence of an MLS player ever calling Turkmenistan home.)
But we do need to think more broadly when we think of “the rest of the world.” Scandinavia is certainly the rest of the world. So is Brazil, whose league system may have some elements worth copying.
That doesn’t mean the switch to what we could call the “Major Euro” calendar is a bad idea. We have aspirations of doing most of our outgoing transfer business with the big leagues, so if we can align our offseasons with them, that’s a positive. And ending a season in May has advantages over ending it in December — better weather, fewer football conflicts, etc. (You’re still going up against the NBA and NHL playoffs, along with the part of the baseball season before they start building for next year.)
But then let’s be honest about those reasons. Let’s not say we’re “complying with FIFA,” as some suggested on Twitter over the weekend, by having a summer offseason.
And let’s figure out what works for us rather than blindly copying league systems from countries that are smaller and meteorologically diverse.
In case you haven’t managed to listen to all of my conversation with journalist/mediator Neil Morris, here’s a quick summary of how we proceeded with our mock mediation of the NASL v USSF lawsuit:
NASL proposal (again, this is fictional — just me playing the role)
USSF counterproposal (again, fictional)
Neil, speaking as a mediator and not a soccer journalist/analyst, sees a few problems with trying to force action upon those who are not party to the suit. USL could object to the removal of D2. Peter Wilt is under no obligation to talk with NASL. (In the real world, he probably would, but the point is that we can’t speak for him in this mediation.)
Another idea: Neil thinks granting the NASL a two-year grace period at Division 2 makes sense, and not just because it’s a compromise between the reported USSF proposal (one year) and NASL (three years).
If these ideas were exchanged in the real world, they might prod everyone toward a resolution of the current issues. Unfortunately, as we discuss, this isn’t likely to be the last USSF lawsuit no matter what they do. Impose an “open system”? OK then, MLS owners would surely haul you to court. Deny NASL the chance to become Division 1 in a few years if they manage to stick around? Yeah, we might see you in court again. Allow NASL to become a competing Division 1? Again, would MLS owners stand for that?
The only way these issues are going to get a long-term solution is if every stakeholder sits down and hammers out a solution that everyone can live with. And even then, you might stop someone new from coming in and suing down the road. We simply live in a litigious society that isn’t going to hand over total control of one sport to the federation, even if it were perfectly run to the satisfaction of 99% of Americans.
Listen to the podcast for all that — if you’re in a hurry, skip to the hour mark, where Neil and I assess the hourlong conversation we just had.
In thinking further about it, I’m leaning toward the following as a long-term plan that satisfies supporters (and those of us concerned about youth development) as well as owners and lawyers …
Neil Morris covers his local teams — North Carolina FC and the North Carolina Courage — for WRAL. His work includes a terrific podcast, the Inverted Triangle. In his day job, he’s an attorney and mediator.
So why not combine his areas of expertise and try to mediate the NASL/USSF lawsuit? We gave it a whirl, with Neil playing the role of mediator and your host flipping between the roles of NASL and USSF advocates.
The conversation starts around the 8:45 mark. We quickly explain what’s going on in the real world with the lawsuit, and then Neil explains the mediation process.
I present a hypothetical NASL offer, prompted by Neil’s helpful questions and prodding, around the 25-minute mark. (Highlights: Cosmos owner on the USSF Board, drop divisional sanctioning OR give us D2 for a few years.) I give a hypothetical USSF counter at 43:45. We spend the last half-hour assessing our progress — some promising ideas, but some roadblocks that even the most reasonable people may have difficulty eliminating. Uh oh.
UPDATE: The judge denied the NASL’s request for an injunction, and the independent actors within USSF were indeed a key factor:
Also, the Board is certainly demonstrating some independence now, seeking a special meeting on “U.S. national team coach hirings,” though it appears USSF CEO Dan Flynn has convinced everyone to wait until the regularly scheduled early December meeting, given the multitude of things USSF is handling at the moment. See Michael Lewis’ stories on the request and the delay.
ORIGINAL POST …
Expanding on a point I made 12 days ago …
If you believe U.S. Soccer’s lawyers, the NASL has to prove that nine members of the U.S. Soccer Board of Directors are conspiring to keep down the Cosmos and whoever else is still in the league.
From Brian Straus’ SI story on the suit:
The nine in question would be the U.S. Soccer Board of Directors minus the following:
Which leaves …
Carlos Cordeiro, vice president: A former Goldman Sachs man brought onto the board in 2007 when it reorganized to include independent directors (people who don’t come onto the board through their various affiliations — state associations, USASA, U.S. Club Soccer, MLS, NWSL, etc.). He defeated incumbent Mike Edwards to become vice president in 2016, and just today (Nov. 1), he announced that he will run for president.
Chris Ahrens, Athletes Council: The 2012 Paralympian is also an adapted PE teacher. His upbeat Twitter feed deserves more followers.
Angela Hucles, Athletes Council: Needs no introduction to women’s soccer fans who remember the 2008 Olympics, in which the longtime utility player suddenly turned into a goal-scoring machine in Abby Wambach’s absence. She’s also one of those overachievers — broadcaster, U.S. Soccer Foundation Humanitarian of the Year, former Women’s Sports Foundation president, etc.
(Athletes are required by the U.S. Olympic Committee to have 20% of the vote, so they have three on the 15 Board slots. The third is Bocanegra’s.)
Richard Moeller, Adult Council: Vice president of the USASA, which governs adult (mostly amateur but with a smattering of semipro teams) soccer in the USA. He’s also the president of the Florida State Soccer Association. He is not the Rich Möller who coaches in Maryland.
(Motta, the USASA president, is the other Adult representative. Note that the Pro Council had no voters — Garber and Malik are its two reps.)
Jesse Harrell, Youth Council: Chairman of U.S. Youth Soccer and a longtime administrator from South Texas. Also a State Farm agent for nearly 35 years.
Tim Turney, Youth Council: Past president of the Kentucky Youth Soccer Association.
Donna Shalala, independent director: Remember the Clinton Administration? She was in that — Secretary of Health and Human Services. She went on to be president of the University of Miami for 14 years and left to run the Clinton Foundation. She suffered a stroke in 2015 — perhaps not coincidentally, she missed several Board meetings. And this tweet after the apocalypse in Trinidad was interesting:
Val Ackerman, independent director: I’ve only met two of the nine people listed here. Hucles is obvious — I covered that team. I met Ackerman in, of all places, the USA TODAY cafeteria. She was president of the WNBA at the time. Now she’s the commissioner of the Big East.
Lisa Carnoy, independent director: The newest Board member joined in August. She’s a banking executive and vice chair of the Board of Trustees at Columbia, which happens to be where Gulati teaches and where the soccer field is named for key USSF accuser and Cosmos owner Rocco Commisso.
It’s worth mentioning that Gulati has been involved in the search for each independent directory. By USSF bylaws, the president serves on the Nominating and Governance Committee. If you go back through Board minutes, you’ll see that Gulati (and others) worked with consulting firms to find people for these spots. You can also see that ethnic and gender diversity were key factors — the Board has never had a white male independent director — which seems only sensible given the general lack of diversity in the Board’s other positions.
Many of the same Board members — Cordeiro, Ahrens, Harrell, Turney, Shalala and possibly Ackerman (who joined either just before or just after that vote) — participated in the vote to approve the NASL’s provisional Division II sanctioning for the 2017 season.
Also worth noting: The Pro League Task Force, which makes recommendations on sanctioning, is currently composed of Cordeiro, Ahrens and USSF CEO Dan Flynn.
If you want some professional analysis of all this, check out Steven Bank’s epic Twitter thread. The impression I get is that the judge isn’t seeing a concerted action to do anything other than deny the NASL the Division II sanction it hasn’t earned. But I’m not the least bit sure about that, and there’s certainly a chance that the judge wants to hear more. Would she issue the injunction just to toss the NASL a lifeline until everything else can be heard?
I’m not going to try to write something coherent out of all the accounts of today’s NASLpalooza in a New York courtroom.
First, I’m going to send my hopes for speedy recoveries for those injured and comfort for those who mourn after today’s senseless attack in Manhattan. I’m going to suggest we look into simple ways to make public spaces safer — bollards would help in this case — without resorting to outrageous racial and religious scapegoating or some sick fantasy that “good guys with guns” can stop this sort of thing from happening.
Then, I’m going to direct you to some first-hand accounts:
And you’ll want to follow Miki Turner, who has an advantage over most of us in that he’s an attorney. Another advantage: He has the transcript.
So what I’m really doing here is leaving a few breadcrumbs to find our way back through the Labyrinth. Or something like that. In simpler terms, I want to capture a few thoughts before the day is done.
1. The “USSF has no right to regulate squat” apocalyptic vision is probably moot.
And that’s good because I think USSF lawyers may have missed an opportunity to point out that there’s a difference between “amateur” as defined in most of the world (someone who is not paid to play) and “amateur” as clumsily redefined in the USA’s Stevens Act when someone realized a lot of Olympians are now raking in the dough.
Another thought on that topic (“they” here refers to NASL legal team):
So legal nerds hoping for The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Whether the Stevens Act Covers Professional Leagues might have to wait until the inevitable suit against some other National Governing Body. (If I were making odds, I’d say it’ll happen in rugby. Or volleyball.)
If you want a bit more on this, here’s Midfield Press: “Judge Brodie asks for clarification on whether Sauer (USSF lawyer) is taking the position that Congress has given USSF the authority to regulate professional soccer. Sauer clarifies that the Stevens Act does not limit their authority. Sauer traces the USSF’s authority from the Olympic charter, from which FIFA draws its authority. USSF is recognized by FIFA. “Bottom line” is that USSF believes it has the authority to govern pro soccer and the Stevens Act does not limit it.”
And finally …
2. I’ll never understand why Jeffrey Kessler gets into soccer lawsuits and tosses out things that are easily refuted by anyone with a shred of outside knowledge (such an opposing counsel).
In Fraser v MLS, we actually had people arguing about whether the Premier League and The Division Now Known As The Championship are equal or whether the bottom three teams in the Premier League are sent down. (See pages 318-321 here, then pages 421-425 here. It actually reached a point of absurdity — page 2190 onward — at which Kessler was forced to backtrack from an assault on the credibility of one Sunil Gulati, who is once again involved in this case and seems to be Kessler’s white whale.)
Today, he brought up the sad story of a family upset over the prospect of losing the San Francisco Deltas. It didn’t take USSF lawyers long to point out that the Deltas’ survival ain’t at stake in this courtroom.
USSF lawyer jumped in and basically said something to the tune of "Why didn't you tell her Deltas were folding as of September 1st?"
— Steve Hamlin (@stevehamlin19) October 31, 2017
3. Judge Margo K. Brodie has done a remarkable job getting up to speed on soccer.
From the Midfield Press account: “(Kessler) suggests that no other FIFA affiliated federation in the world has standards like USSF’s PLS. Judge Brodie suggests that is because soccer in those other countries is the number one sport, which is not the case here in the United States.”
Do you hear that, Soccer Twitter?
And she seems like one of those stereotypical New York judges from Law & Order who makes the lawyers behave.
4. I still don’t have a good handle on when this case will discuss whether the NASL can reasonably have D2 status.
We know from earlier filings — and from the reporting by Midfield Press and Nipun Chopra — that the NASL is grabbing some NPSL teams and flinging them up the pyramid to bolster their numbers. Follow-up info on that front is redacted, but it was discussed in court today:
Coincidentally, the Ranting Soccer Dad podcast posting tomorrow morning is an interview with NPSL Managing Director Jef Thiffault. We refer to the clubs considering an NASL move, but given the pending legal action, don’t expect a ton of detail.
5. I have no idea who’s going to win.
Or at what stage. Would the judge grant an injunction, giving the NASL a stay of execution, only to grant the USSF’s Motion to Dismiss, which is following a separate schedule and will take a few more weeks to discuss? I’ve heard convincing arguments either way, and I can’t pretend to be a lawyer.
I can tell you from a journalist/historian’s point of view, the NASL side has piled on more arguments that set off my b.s. detectors. They have eight teams — no, wait, make that 14, even though it’s well-established that a couple of these teams aren’t likely to return, and several others are currently playing before crowds of hundreds (when reported) in the NPSL with amateur players. They made bold claims about competing with MLS well before they were ready to do so, and now that they’ve declined, they’re blaming the system. They could’ve differentiated themselves from MLS by creating the promotion/relegation system they claimed to support, and not long ago, NPSL was interested in doing that. NASL pushed them away, only to latch onto a few NPSL clubs now.
If I were an NASL fan — and if I lived in Indianapolis or Puerto Rico right now, I would be — I’d be embarrassed by this insistence on propping up a brand name instead of joining up with NISA or regrouping some other way in Division III and working back up.
But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong, legally. It doesn’t mean they can’t convince a judge who appears to be quite reasonable that they should be given, like Delta House after the Faber parade, just one more chance.
Duresport.com 