Aug. 27 - Nike sells the USL to NuRock soccer holdings instead of the team of owners. The owners are believed to be considering a new soccer league.
Oct. 3 - The USL releases players from Carolina, Minnesota and Miami, stating that they own the contracts to each team and the team's decision to leave the league makes them null and void. Left out of this was Montreal and Vancouver, which were playing in the USL final and are successful enough to plan for jumps to the MLS. However, the players remained with their teams as the owners maintained the USL did not, in fact, own the contracts.
Nov. 3 - Minnesota, mired in debt, releases its players for real this time. It had previously lost its general manager and coach.
Nov. 10 - Carolina, Minnesota, Miami, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta and St. Louis submit an application for a new league to the United States Soccer Federation. This is one team shy of the 8-team minimum the USSF normally requires as Tampa was dropped from the initially rumored list.
Nov. 20 - Tampa and Baltimore are added to the list, which is significant because it gives the new league nine teams — one more than eight should Minnesota fold (more on that on Sunday). However, the USL struck back later that day with a release vowing to pursue all (legal?) actions to keep Tampa and Baltimore in the USL. The USL says it believes the TOA is meddling with current USL teams under contract for the 2010 season.
Q: Just to be clear, you never paid the [USL franchise fee] for this upcoming year right?
A: No, I got out several months ago.
Q: Was there a team that did pay the fee but is leaving the USL?
A: Not in our group. There's a few others in the league now that still haven't paid the fee. They're kind of sitting on the fence waiting to see what will happen.
Q: Is there any talk about switching to the FIFA calendar?
A: There’s nothing serious in the time. Now, FIFA likes that, for everyone to be on the same calendar but you’ve got all these objections. We’ve got teams up in Rochester, Minnesota, Montreal and Vancouver. So there’s some objection to it. Now the answer to it is really not all that difficult. The way they do it over in Europe – they have cold weather over there too – so what they do is basically take two seasons. They usually start about August and end around April. But what they’ll do is split it. They’ll play from August till like December. Then they’ll take a big ol’ break during the cold months and maybe do some friendly matches and things like that in between. And then they’ll start the second half of the season late February/March. That’s how we’d do it in the United States to get around the weather problem. To me, that’s probably several years down the road.
Comments
Jarrett Campbell
Sat, 11/21/2009 - 18:30 — wjarrettcOn today's Soccer Sam show in Rochester, Rhinos owner Rob Clark was asked the question: "As of November 21st, 2009 what league are the Rhinos in?" After a long pause, Clark stated "We're down here at the USL AGM listening to what they have to say." When challenged that he didn't answer the question that was asked, Clark said something to the effect of "Have I told you how beautiful the weather is down here in Tampa this time of the year?"
I don't think Selby's allusion to Rochester was a slip up.
Also, on the naming front, it appears that Miami FC has filed several claims with the US Patent and Trademark Office on the name North American Soccer League. Looks like they are looking to revive the old NASL brand.