What was the "Soccer War"?
Posted on October 25, 2010 12:37 am
Ask Americans what the “Soccer War” was and their response may have to do with the 1969 war between El Salvador and Honduras. It’s not likely that they’ll mention the 1928-29 struggle between the U.S. Football Association and the American Soccer League over control of the sport in this country, but that one is the original holder of the name.
Although the issue over which those two organizations locked horns centered on participation by ASL teams in the National Challenge Cup (now called the U.S. Open Cup), the battle really was over the question of which of them was to be the controlling organization of soccer in the United States.
The ASL had been upset for several years by the schedule difficulties the National Challenge Cup caused, and had boycotted the 1924-25 event. Then, in 1927, the United States got into hot water with FIFA over the signing by ASL teams of players who were under contract to European teams. USFA president Andrew M. Brown made an emergency trip to the 1927 FIFA Congress in Finland and fended off moves to penalize the United States. However, the USFA’s bowing to foreign authority inspired in some ASL owners a desire to free themselves from the limitations imposed on them by the USFA and FIFA’s European leaders. This was particularly true of New York Nationals owner Charles Stoneham, who also owned the New York Giants baseball team and wanted to see American soccer run more like baseball was (and without European interference).
In the summer of 1928, Stoneham proposed a series of moves to other ASL owners, the main one of which was that the ASL remove its teams from the National Challenge Cup. The ASL was an East Coast league, and among the other things that Stoneham proposed was that within a few years a midwestern division of the ASL be founded, and that a final between the winners of the two divisions replace the National Challenge Cup as the true championship of American soccer.
The ASL accepted Stoneham’s proposals, and ordered that its teams be withdrawn from the cup. Three teams who had opposed the proposals, Bethlehem Steel, the New York Giants and the Newark Skeeters, refused to withdraw from the cup and were suspended from the league. This resulted in the league being suspended by the USFA, and the Soccer War was on.
During that 1928-29 season, the ASL played without those three teams, who joined several semipro New York teams in forming the Eastern Soccer League.
Support for the USFA from other national federations, plus the economic disadvantages the ASL faced as an outlaw league, eventually convinced the ASL that it couldn’t win this fight and should yield. The Soccer War was settled in early October 1929. The ASL, which had already begun its 1929-30 season, halted that season. The full league was put back together, and for that season played under the name of the Atlantic Coast League. The damage done to the ASL might have been temporary but for the fact that the end of one problem was quickly followed by the start of another. The stock-market crash that triggered the Depression occurred just two weeks after the settlement. The original ASL lasted only a few more seasons, and in 1933 it was replaced by a scaled-down, semipro version, with smaller budgets and no attempts to recruit European stars.
Whether the original ASL would have survived the Depression if the Soccer War hadn’t happened is uncertain. Perhaps some money that might have been invested in American soccer was scared away by the infighting within the sport that the Soccer War epitomized, but by the early 1930s, there wasn’t much money around anyway. As for the USFA, since renamed the U.S. Soccer Federation, this was not the last time that it has faced a challenge to its authority over American soccer.
Interesting read. Well done
Thank you very much for this article. It’s interesting to speculate–if the ASL had survived–maybe in time it could have grown to be as big as MLB and NFL. It is even more interesting to imagine what american soccer would have looked like today if we had developed apart from FIFA.
Can’t help but notice the similarities between the USFA and the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) and their power struggle.
The FMF basically fought tooth and nail with other orgnaizations for control and things appeared to be resolved in 1927 (the year the FMF was founded). That was more of a front because they wanted to participate in the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam and the inaugural World Cup in 1930.
For nearly 2 more decades after 1930 WC, there was a constant struggle between the federation and the club owners. The owners kept saying that since they were the key investors and the ones building the stadiums, that they should be in control. FIFA, would not concede power to them, and the FMF, although moneyless, did have the power.
Ultimately, it was after the 1970 World Cup (In Mexico) when the club owners got the power and got control of the FMF. Before the 1970 WC, The first division had less than 30% of the voting power. After the World Cup, they had more % of the voting power than all the other divisions (2nd, 3rd, 4th, and amatuer sector) combined.
I find it curious that the way the league seasons are identified (e.g. “1928-29″) implies they played fall-spring. I wonder how they dealt with the weather back then.
Weather? C’mon, these people walked 5 miles to school in the snow every day. Uphill. Both ways. What was a mere 90 minutes going to do?
Interesting piece Roger. Thanks
I think the next new MLS team should be called the Skeeters. But don’t put them in Newark
So is ChampionsWorld’s Charlie Stillitano the Charles Stoneham of his day?
Another great piece, Roger.
Also amusing to see that the New York ASL Giants, like the New York NFL Giants, could call themselves that, without being owned (or sued) by Charles Stoneham. In fact, Stoneham had to call his team the New York Nationals because the New York Giants name was taken, as far as the ASL was concerned. Proving once again the proverb that “Nationals” is sucky default name for a sucky default team.
I’ve never seen numbers, but looking at newspapers, it seems as though in January and February there were at least as many games postponed as there were games played. Sub-freezing weather could be a plus, however. Frozen ground meant less mud.
Later in this series of posts on historical stuff, I’m planning to have something about a horrendous game played in the midst of a sleet storm in 1914.
One of the ironies of this situation was that at least two teams were beneficiaries of the flow of European talent that the outlaw ASL exploited – Bethlehem and New York Hakoah, who joined the ESL in 1929, had several mercenaries from Scotland and Austria respectively.
Bethlehem made their name as National Champions through the Open Cup winning it four times between 1915 and 1919.
Although they had a wider geographical reach, the ASL was not necessarily more established than say – the Southern New York State Football Association. The SNYSFA was organized enough to warrent invitation from FIFA to present their structure to the growing international body in Switzerland.
It was the same SNYSFA that teams (Hispano, IRT Rangers and Hungaria) were culled to join the breakaway Eastern Soccer League.
In the interm years, ASL clubs from New York – the Giants, Brooklyn Wanderers and Nationals, all participated in the SNYSFA Cup, which incuded both the amateur and pro teams from the area.
The fragmented movements, league hopping and renaming of clubs during this era is very remenicent of the USL / NASL “war” that is prevelant today …
so what’s new ?
I think that breakaway Eastern League is still operating as the Eastern District Soccer League, though I’m finding it hard to prove.
I wonder how long the emergency trip to the FIFA Congress took back then!
I can see the irony concerning Hakoah, which won the U.S. Open Cup in 1929 with a team that was composed largely of former Hakoah Vienna players. I can’t see it concerning Bethlehem Steel, however.
The European protests to FIFA in 1927 that helped to spark the Soccer War were not simply about ASL teams signing European players. They were about ASL teams inducing European players to break their contracts. I’m not aware that Bethlehem Steel ever did this.
Bethlehem did have many Scottish players over the years, going back at least as far as 1912, but I’ve never heard any suggestion that they were contract-jumpers.
When reading through the ASL and GAL (German-American League of NY) reports published in the Ukrainian Weekly newspaper, lots of games were called off, snowed out during the winter. This pushed for a move “indoors” with more indoor tourneys in NYC taking off in the 1960s (following the successful model already well in place in Chicago by that time).
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