Category: Sidewinder Insider

Sidewinder Insider deals primarily with lower division soccer, but any association football news is fair game.

MLS and relegation

In many ways, I count myself as a soccer purist.

Out of Left Field is written by Scott Adamson. It appears weekly and sometimes more frequently if he gets up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

Decades before there was a stable domestic league in the United States – and Major League Soccer is now firmly rooted – I was pulling for teams such as Celtic FC and Manchester United, and living for those rare times when a soccer match might pop up on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

In the era that preceded cable television, the Internet and social media, much of my soccer information came via the library, meaning I wasn’t exactly getting up-to-date reports. It was like a shooting star … by the time news reached me, it was already history.

Still, I learned as much as I could about the Beautiful Game, and accepted something that seems odd to American sports fans – the lack of a postseason tournament in most international football leagues.

If you ended the regular season with the most points, you were the champion – period.

There was never playoff fever because there was never a playoff, but that was just part of a deal. If a club clinched a title with three weeks left in the season, so be it.

And of course, there was relegation.

Just as baseball as a hierarchy, from the Majors down to instructional leagues, soccer has divisions. And teams at the bottom of the top league have to fight to stay there, because there are always teams in the division below it looking to earn promotion.

I’ve always felt this system was brilliant. Some of the most competitive soccer matches I’ve ever seen involve English Premier League clubs battling it out in the twilight of a season in an effort to avoid being demoted to the First Division.

Beyond that, it prevents team owners from holding “fire sales” to unload talent. Stakeholders won’t be happy if you allow your team to drop down a rung, and promotion/relegation serves as motivation.

Jump to the present, where there has been talk of a relegation system in the United States. Guys like me would love nothing better for the bottom two teams in MLS each season to drop down to, say, the United Soccer League, while the top two USL teams move up.

Only problem is, MLS isn’t talking about it. And I’d be stunned if it ever agreed to such a system.

You might remember over the summer MP & Silva, a media rights company, offered MLS a staggering $4 billion for media rights that would extend through the 2023 season.

Had there been no strings attached, it’s likely MLS officials would’ve jumped on the offer.

Ah, but there were, indeed, strings.

The MLS would have to work with USL as well as the North American Soccer League, in the formation of a promotion/ relegation system.

And that was a deal-breaker.

The sports culture in the United States is vastly different than just about everywhere else. And while the EPL and most top-tier international leagues accept relegation as part of the sport, MLS would recoil at the thought of a franchise like the New York Red Bulls or L.A. Galaxy slipping into a lower division, replaced by the Charleston Battery and Rio Grande Valley FC Toros.

MLS has a single entity ownership structure, and its investors never want to see a situation where a major market slips to a minor league.

Personally, I think it would be great. I’d even be fine with the European system in which there were no playoffs at all.

Had that been in effect this year in MLS, Toronto FC would already be taking its victory lap as league champions, and not have to worry about facing Columbus twice to make the MLS Cup.

I suppose there might be a day where relegation comes to professional soccer in the United States, but I wouldn’t count on it. The entire landscape of American pro sports would have to change dramatically.

I think the best we can hope for are stable second and third division leagues, and the United States Soccer Federation still has plenty of work to do to unify the system.

Court ruling puts NASL on life support

By Scott Adamson
Adamsonmedia.com

The first incarnation of the North American Soccer League folded in 1984.

Thirty-three years later, its second division namesake might just join it in the sports graveyard.

On Saturday, a federal judge denied the NASL an injunction against the United States Soccer Federation that would have allowed the NASL to regain its Division II status, a move that would’ve put it one rung below Major League Soccer and on par with the United Soccer League as a second-tier circuit.

“We are very disappointed with the Court’s decision in denying our motion for a preliminary injunction,” the league said in a statement released on Saturday afternoon. “We remain steadfast in our pursuit of antitrust claims against the U.S. Soccer Federation and are confident that justice will ultimately be served. In light of the extreme harm this decision poses to the NASL and our teams, players, coaches and fans, we will immediately begin reviewing all of our legal options including the process for appealing today’s ruling.”

In September the USSF rejected the NASL’s Division II application, forcing the league to play at Division III if it chose to remain sanctioned by the American soccer governing body.

Seeking relief through the courts, its best hope rested with Judge Margo Brodie, who ruled on Saturday that while the NASL may well suffer “irreparable harm” by being denied D2 status, it did not demonstrate “a clear showing of entitlement to relief.”

The circuit, which features franchises in major markets such as New York (a club that retains the iconic Cosmos nickname), San Francisco, Indianapolis and Miami, has had something of an adversarial relationship with MLS, and NASL officials suggested that league as well as the USSF and USL had conspired against it by changing the Professional League Standards that determine the U.S. soccer hierarchy.

The PLS requires at least 12 franchises across three time zones; the NASL currently has eight franchises, but one – North Carolina FC, is moving to the USL next season and another, the San Francisco Deltas, are in danger of folding.

The USSF released the following statement after the ruling was announced:

“U.S. Soccer’s responsibility is to ensure the long-term stability and sustainability of all professional leagues operating in the United States, as well as the teams that compete within those leagues. After providing numerous opportunities over the years for the NASL to meet the Professional League Standards, or at least provide a pathway to meet those standards, the elected and independent members of the U.S. Soccer Board of Directors ultimately made a decision not to sanction the NASL as a Division 2 league. The decision was made in the best interest of soccer in the United States, and today’s decision confirms it was the correct decision. U.S. Soccer is committed to finding ways to improve the long-term viability of all leagues and teams and, by doing so, continue building upon the growth of soccer in the United States. U.S. Soccer is committed to working with NASL as it considers its future.”

UPDATE:

NASL interim commissioner Rishi Sehgal issued a statement on Sunday following the appeal filed by the NASL to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The statement reads:

“Following the disappointing ruling issued by the U.S. District Court yesterday, the NASL filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. We remain confident in the merits of our case and that our request for a preliminary injunction is supported by the law. For that reason, we’re hopeful that the Second Circuit will deliver a ruling that allows the NASL to play at the Division 2 level in 2018 and enables us to continue growing and developing the sport. We have asked for our appeal to be expedited to eliminate the uncertainty facing all of our clubs, players, coaches, fans, and other stakeholders.”