Break-Away DII League
November 10th, 2009 . 11:47 am . By: Buzz CarrickFrom the USL. I’m certainly no expert on USL team politics, but this story is important and worth passing on. Former USL teams in Atlanta, Carolina, Miami, Minnesota, Montreal, and Vancouver are joining with a new team in St. Louis to form a new pro soccer league that will begin play in 2010. Those are some solid teams that have been around a long time. There was even some discussion at some point of them forming a MLS2. It will be interesting to see what happens if this league is successful and moves forward in the future. Vancouver is joining MLS obviously. Will there be more teams joining this league or this announcement a power play to gain some control from the USL? 8 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
One of these teams is headed to MLS, and one more would leave in a heartbeat if given the chance. I think it’s a power play that will only last through next year.
USL seems to be poorly run. If this new league clearly beats out USL in some areas, the other USL teams may hop over. I don’t see both existing long term. This is boom or bust, and I have no idea which it will be.
The other USL owners are simply waiting to see if this works, then they’ll jump. They are all sick of paying Francisco his blood money. I couldn’t be happier to see that guy shut out of professional soccer in the US. He’s done more harm than good.
i don’t really follow USL, so what is the “power play” for? What are they looking to gain from this?
I can see this putting a little pressure on MLS to annex these teams sooner rather than later.
Whatever it takes to get rid of Francisco Marcos, lets do it. I almost threw up when I saw his name among executive candidates for the soccer hall of fame.
This is a power play, we should all pay attention, and it’s important for this reason: They have broken away from the USL becasue it was a “single entity” set up just like MLS. The owners of these teams wanted more control over player contracts, money issues, and basic operations of the teams. The single entity owners didn’t want to give more autonomy, so these teams have bolted.
This league should be an “MLS2″ league, just as soon as all MLS teams are owned by an individual owner, which needed to happen yesterday. That includes our illustrious owners, who should be forced to sell either Columbus or FCD (please let it be us!). Then single entity should be dropped, a salary cap kept in place, free agency given to players out of contract, teams negotiating transfer fees rather than trades, ect.
Vancouver, Montreal, possibly Minnesota should be in MLS soon anyways. Vancouver already in, Portland will probably play in this league until next year, Austin should go, Tampa Bay should too, and maybe USL 1 will collapse. Hell, CP Baltimore is building a 7k seater venue, that’s good enough for MLS2 stadium. Start raiding USL2 sides and build the numbers up.
The USL was a lot less Single Entity than MLS is. No salary caps, no roster restrictions, no league wide sponsorship or TV deals. I don’t think you are accurately describing the issue, CHad.