Remember the 2008 SuperLiga Final, when the New England Revolution beat the Houston Dynamo on penalties, then swapped shirts with Dynamo players as a show of solidarity over Major League Soccer not giving them a worthwhile cut of the “$1 Million SuperLiga Prize”? Steve Ralston, wearing a Dynamo jersey, walked up to MLS commissioner Don Garber, took the trophy from him and coolly walked off, leaving the the makeshift stage empty as the confetti cannons blasted away.
I wonder if the USL First Division Final trophy presentation will be the same way.
You see, on Saturday, USL dropped the hammer on three members of the Team Owners Association. The league told the Carolina Railhawks, Miami FC and Minnesota Thunder that they were no longer USL members and that all their players were released from their contracts. Those three clubs had not renewed their contracts with USL for 2010, and the league decided it would punish them rather than negotiate with them. The league also removed links to the clubs from its web site.
So why were the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps — also TOA members who have not re-upped with USL – not included in this announcement? Because they made it to the USL-1 Finals. Montreal knocked off Puerto Rico 4-2 on aggregate, while 7th-seeded Vancouver upset the top-seeded Portland Timbers to make it an all-Canadian (and all-TOA) final.
If the USL were to punish the Impact and Whitecaps now by cutting ties with them and canceling its final, it would turn the entire league into a complete farce. So the league will play out the season, then give those two clubs the same cold shoulder a few days after the trophy’s been awarded.
What does all this mean for the lower divisions of professional soccer in the USA? Nobody is quite sure just yet. The bottom line for the TOA is that it needs 8 clubs to form a new league that will be recognized by FIFA. Carolina, Miami, Minnesota, Montreal and Vancouver make five. St. Louis Soccer United, also a TOA member, makes six. The Tampa Bay Rowdies would make seven, but it’s unclear whether they are bound by contract to play in USL in 2010. The Atlanta Silverbacks would make eight and give the new league a strong southeastern presence, but USL seems certain to make some sort of legal claim to that market — especially since NuRock Holdings, the new owners of the league, are based in Atlanta.
The one voice we haven’t heard from yet? Don Garber. We know that TOA members have met with MLS to discuss the possibility of an MLS2. We also know Garber is eager to put USL in its place. Awarding Portland and Vancouver expansion franchises was proof of that. If Garber shows up at the MLS Cup Final and announces an MLS2 with these 8 clubs in place, it could potentially crush USL. The Puerto Rico Islanders, the Charleston Battery and FC New York would look at MLS2 and think, “Wait a minute, why aren’t we involved in that?”
Inside Minnesota Soccer is doing a bang-up job following this story. David Fellerath over at Triangle Offense is also following this story from the Railhawks’ perspective. If you’re interested in the inner workings of pro soccer in America below the MLS level, keep an eye on them. There will be plenty more twists in this tale before it’s over.
3 responses so far ↓
1 a different Dave // Oct 8, 2009 at 10:17 pm
USL has done a lot of good over the years, but Francisco Marcos & his crew should be happy they suckered someone into buying the USL. They’ve had their payday; they can not expect to control the USL1 clubs forever.
With MLS poaching all of the best USL1 clubs anyway, something like this was bound to happen. The interest of most of the USL1 clubs no longer coincides with the interests of USL/Marcos. The fishy way the recent resale of USL went through was the final straw.
USL really hasn’t done much good for the clubs on the higher end of USL1 who might have ambitions of moving up to MLS at some point in the future. Being marketed as MLS2 might help their case and give them a little bit more credibility as eventual MLS candidates.
Kicking TOA clubs out of USL and releasing players from their contracts is more than a little bit petty and suggests Marcos & Co. and the new USL owners aren’t interested in negotiating with TOA. How can they release players from their contracts, anyway? Contracts are owned by the clubs, aren’t they? USL is not single entity like MLS.
I doubt that players would chose a depleted USL1 over the prospects of an MLS2 with closer connections to MLS. Releasing players from contracts is thus a pretty empty threat. And it doesn’t even work on new clubs like Tampa Bay Rowdies who haven’t even signed any players yet.
I hope the MLS2 rumors are true. It might bring a little bit more stability and credibility to the second tier of North American soccer. At seems that USL1 as we knew it is through, given these recent actions. No willingness to negotiate with TOA means most of USL1 is gone next year.
Well at least we will be entertained by off-field shenanigans during the off season this year and next. Break out the popcorn.
2 Dave // Oct 9, 2009 at 10:14 am
Is this really a matter of Marcos “finding a sucker?” There were multiple buyers lined up, and the whole reason for this feud was Marcos’ last-minute undermining of a TOA-friendly buyer in SLSU’s Jeff Cooper. NuRock practically seems like a puppet company that lets Marcos keep the league under his thumb.
Either way, we agree that USL hasn’t done enough to promote its pro clubs. That’s why I think a new league is a good thing. My big concern about MLS2, however, is that MLS will turn these clubs into baseball-like farm systems. I got nothing against the Durham Bulls, but I don’t want the Railhawks to become D.C. United’s AAA team. That’s what the PDL was supposed to be for.
If MLS2 ends up like ArenaFootball2 and becomes a separate league with independent teams that can compete in the Open Cup, I can live with that. I can also live with a new league fully separate from both USL and MLS. From the looks of things, they have enough clubs to do it, not to mention a strong southeastern presence (Raleigh, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami). Then again, those southern clubs are probably the main reason MLS is interested, aren’t they?
3 a different Dave // Oct 10, 2009 at 4:39 am
You misunderstood me or I wasn’t being clear: Marcos already found his sucker in Umbro/Nike back when he originally sold off USL. Now he wants to control the sale, after he sold it, so he can stay in control. That is my point, and yours: so we agree!
I do have to wonder about the motives of the buyers of USL at this point, though, as they had to have known that something like what is now happening (USL D1 breakaway) was likely to happen. If the TOA’s proxy had bought USL of course that would have been a different matter: they would have reformed USL in the interests of the owners and against the interests of Marcos, which is why the sale was nixed, presumably.
As for farm systems on the baseball model: to be a true farm system, MLS would have to own all the contracts of the players in MLS2 (which as I understand it is how baseball farm system works – I might be wrong on that since I don’t follow baseball). I don’t think MLS wants that kind of financial burden.
MLS would like a de facto farm system though, that they don’t have to pay for (ie, players can be loaned easily when needed), which would leave MLS2 teams independent enough to run their own system and compete in US Open Cup, etc.
And yes with the movement of three Pacific Northwestern USL clubs to MLS, and the almost inevitable movement of a fourth USL club (Montreal) to MLS at some point, the teams in USL1, with their heavy Southeastern presence, where MLS is currently a no-show, makes an MLS2 breakaway league look like a smart move both for MLS and the USL1 clubs in that it paves the way for future MLS expansion into the Southeast (anyone who says that MLS isn’t going back into the Southeast and back into Florida is simply crazy and/or misinformed).
Raleigh, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, if they can solve problems with stadium issues and can acquire deep pocketed billionaire ownership groups, would all be natural MLS clubs at some point.
Miami might be better off moving permanently back to Lockhart Stadium and renaming themselves the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. Back in NASL days, and also today, Ft. Lauderdale seems better able to attract soccer fans than Miami can – not sure why, but it is a consistent pattern over the past three decades.
This of course would be a fantastic rivalry for the Tampa Bay Rowdies, dating back to the NASL era, similar to rivalries in the Pacific Northwest. Yes, I can say that from personal experience, just as intense a rivalry as those of the Pacific Northwest – unfortunately the dormancy of these Florida clubs since 1993 has caused the memory of this rivalry to fall off the radar of most everyone except some of us NASL old timers.
Having a “nursery” league for potential new MLS cities makes a lot of sense – instead of having a new ownership group “do it in one go” to form a new club (as is usually the case with MLS expansion), have them run an MLS2 club for a few years while they work the kinks out and get their organization running smoothly before they make the jump to MLS.
There are also clubs who won’t be interested in moving up to MLS (Charleston Battery for instance) but who might be interested in being part of MLS2 (or whatever it is called) rather than staying with USL. If this thing works out, the clubs in smaller cities who won’t be moving up to MLS will eventually fill out the ranks of MLS2 (or whatever it is called) while the clubs in bigger markets acquire bigger ownership groups and move up to MLS.
I could see at some point in the far future, MLS and MLS2 merging, if the MLS2 clubs grow rich enough ownership groups to make this happen. At that point you could have a kind of “promotion and relegation” but only within the confines of a single entity merged MLS/MLS2 operation.
Anyway that’s just my idle speculation. I really don’t like to see what’s going on with USL, having lived through so many failed soccer leagues over the past 40 years, but the way USL has been runing D1 is obviously dysfunctional, so this is probably a necessary split.