As you may or may not know, the Womens Professional Soccer league is in trouble. Big, big trouble. Unless it finds an investor for a sixth team (it’s supposed to have eight) by this Monday, the league will lose USSF sanctioning for 2012. The lowdown via player Yael Averbuch in the NYT’s soccer blog:
This, as I understand it, is the situation: On Nov. 20, US Soccer met to decide whether W.P.S. would be continue to be sanctioned as a professional league. The federation has established basic standards for a league to be considered professional, and this past season W.P.S. did not meet several of these standards. There must be no fewer than eight teams, and they must span more than one time zone — two stipulations for which W.P.S. was granted an exception. US Soccer has given W.P.S. 15 days to secure another franchise, meaning the league would again consist of six teams, still technically below the standard. But this has put W.P.S. in a bind. A bind that could potentially threaten the league’s existence.
This is what I know about the world of soccer governance. The USSF, like all FIFA member nations, dictates its own criteria for league sanction as per FIFA statutes 18.1, 18.2. The reason, I presume, for the eight teams minimum rule, is the same as it is for Division II in the US: to prevent the league from taking on fly-by-night start-ups only for them to disappear from financial mismanagement, as Brian Quarstad points out from last year’s D2 rule changes.
Except in this case, if the WPS doesn’t get a sixth team, women’s soccer disappears. Full stop. Which seems fairly arbitrary, and a situation where the law is a bit of an ass. As the WPS petition to USSF states:
And what does this mean for your daughter? Or for your little sister? Your cousin? Your friend? WUSA has folded and we have recovered. But to see Women’s Professional Soccer fail twice would surely mean the end. The opportunity for the millions of young girls that dream of being the next Hope Solo or Alex Morgan will never get the chance. All because US Soccer did not back the league that is playing in their back yard.
It would be a shame to destroy womens soccer over this.
I won’t shed a tear if this league dies… it’s minor league stuff and nobody should care about the loss of a minor league.
If women want to play professionally, get a trial with the NASL or MLS. Oh wait, you’re not good enough for the NASL or MLS? Just proved my point.
Opinions and attitudes like that are why I am losing faith in society…
Wow are you proud of that sexist, archaic, backwards thinking attitude of yours? I highly doubt you’re an athlete of any great caliber so who are you to be criticizing these women who are more skilled in soccer than you have ever been in any sport you have ever played. The only point you have proved is that ignorant people are still spewing their pathetic morals without any thought as to how wrong they really are.
What a courageous troll you are. Now then, scurry back into whatever hole you came from, till the next chance comes to spew some mindless, incendiary bullshit.
This whole thing is confusing. US Soccer granted a one-year waiver so they could bypass the requirements last season, but with the momentum from the Women’s World Cup and plans for expansion in the future, wouldn’t it make sense to extend it for one more season rather than risk losing the league (and its players) entirely?
A dick move by the USSF. So what if there’s only 5 teams. Seriously, something’s better than nothing. The only thing that would be a bigger dick move would be for FIFA to get the USSF in trouble over it.
So I fully support women’s sports, but if there’s no market for it, there’s no market for it. Unless the US (and Canada, for that matter) suddenly has a workers revolution that’s a pretty important thing to be missing.
Perhaps they can downgrade things, create a Div II type level of womens soccer…a more regionalized league with lower salaries. Or perhaps they can focus on the NCAA.
Women like Marta and Christine Sinclair, it seems to me, should be going over to Europe, or perhaps South America. Women’s sports are generally, though not always, less popular than mens. But it’s kind of silly to try and have the best league in the world (as the US tries to do) in a sport which still isn’t popular, whether it’s mens or womens. They might as well try starting the Women’s Professional Cricket League, or Women’s Professional Lawn Bowling…
As noble a goal as this league is… there’s a reason the idea’s failed twice now (in spite of the best efforts of a lot of people involved).
We all know the only reason the WNBA continues to exist is because the NBA views it as a money-losing enterprise that’s good for PR. Unless a women’s league somehow winds up under the auspices of a financially-successful men’s league (which, let’s face it, doesn’t really exist right now), odds are good that it’s not going to find the dollars in an increasingly crowded sports marketplace to succeed.
I mean, for crying out loud, we can’t even keep a women’s pro hockey league financially solvent **in Canada**. There’s no reason to expect soccer in the US to maintain a women’s loop without significant financial subsidies being paid by someone… and that someone just doesn’t exist right now. All the “momentum” in the world isn’t going to help you if there’s no one willing to pay to see your games in your chosen markets, and right now there just isn’t.
[[The "one time zone" rule seems *incredibly* stupid, though. So that means that if I had every city in the NHL's Eastern Conference in my soccer league (before Atlanta moved), I wouldn't be given professional sanction? In spite of being in NYC, Philly, Boston, Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, DC, and Pittsburgh?]]