http://homepages.sover.net/~spectrum/year/1990.html#APSL says about the APSL in 1990: "The league also had ambitions to be designated by FIFA as the new Division 1 American league." Is that wrong? Was there a time when league sanctioning changed from being designated by FIFA to the USSF and FAs of other countries?
Good question. I would imagine we are kind of a worldwide exception (have you ever heard of such a thing?!) in that it hasn't been much of an issue in other countries as it pertains to which league occupied each division in a given country. It's possible it was shorthand. It's possible it was a mistake. It's possible that in 1990 no one had any idea how the process would work. When the USA and the NPSL had Soccer War II in 1967, news reports were that the USSFA (now USSF) had chosen the USA as its official league, giving it "exclusive rights." FIFA was mentioned a lot as being involved in the lawsuit and merger talks, but it appears the federation had the final say.
No FIFA never sanctioned MLS as D1. FIFA made a professional first division a prerequisite for the 1994 World Cup. It meant a Division 1 that was fully professional, which the US didn't have at the time of the bid.
It looks like USSF not FIFA was responsible for D1 designation. Talk about a conflict of interest!!! http://articles.latimes.com/1994-07-03/news/ss-11409_1_world-cup
Unless FIFA leaves that to federations, in which case it’s a feature, not a bug. Unless you think the seven(ish)-team APSL or League 1 America were really better choices.
That’s FUNNY! The Foxes played at a Greyhound Park in suburban Denver. Nobody had a dedicated facility. That’s silly.
Looks like it was because the series was tied after two games. Best of three! I like it! Not exactly my favorite system since they had a shootout after the second game but not bad. Forget aggregate or away goals. Play two regular 90 minute games, home and away. 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie. If neither team has an point advantage after those two games then you play overtime as a separate 30 minute game. If no one wins then you have a shootout. A win by two goals (or one where you give up a goal at home) is just a win, the same as in the regular season.
Well, they had eight for a bit, but by the time this article was published, the Houston Force franchise had been terminated after one game because of “financial difficulties.” They actually added two (Atlanta and New York) and lost three (Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale and Toronto). Kinda. Lapper, Harkes and Ramos played in one of the predecessor leagues, but okay. Kooiman, Perez, Wynalda, Balboa and Caligiuri had actually played (or, in Perez’s case, were still playing) in the post-1990 APSL. But the general point is this: the idea that the APSL could have or should have been the platform upon which our shiny new D1 league was built was a bit silly. They existed, yes, and MLS did not yet. But ownership and instability were against them.
The US already had soccer leagues before MLS and honestly the original USL, 3rd ASL, or APSL would've been better choices than creating a single entity fake league that's closed off from the rest of the country. They should've developed the APSL and set up a tiered system with pro/rel that was proposed in 1988. So basically MLS stagnated US soccer for 30 years now.
Yes but the ASL was down to 7 teams by 1994 including 3 Canadian teams there just to make up the numbers. So the business model obviously didn't work.
Riiiiiiiiiight. You should read more. I mean, you’re adorable and all, and your trolling game is strong. But it’s the same Cosmofan bullshit that is unsupported by actual reality. Please tell me exactly how we’ve stagnated for 30 years. I seem to see more teams, more players, more stadiums, more games on television, more television revenue and more interest in the game today than at any point in American history. The original USL was an amateur league that did not even have a pro division until 1994 and they were playing with 60 minute clocks with stoppages, blue cards, kick-ins, live shootouts during play and modified free kicks after seven fouls. Very authentic. The third ASL folded in NINETEEN EIGHTY FREAKING FOUR, YOU MOOK. We get it, blah blah blah closed league blah blah blah fake blah blah blah single entity blah blah blah revisionist history.
My bad. Second ASL folded in ‘84. Third one merged with the WSL to form the APSL. And, still...at times the ASL had two teams in Washington and two in Miami. They were a joke, too. As far from the foundation of a D1 league as the others.
Well the ASL and other leagues in the 1980's could've grown if the USSF had given them attention instead of creating a fake league like MLS. MLS was completely unnecessary and we'd have a real tiered system if an anti-competitive closed cartel weren't monopolizing the D1 spot. Even right after NASL folding the USSF could've organized a meeting of all soccer leagues in the country and set up a qualifying tournament for a new D1 league. Germany did that when they created the Bundesliga in 1963.
We get it, you're railing against the man. Europe is better, blah, blah. blah. The FACTS are that soccer as a professional sport simply was not popular in the US in the '80's. At that point the USMNT hadn't even qualified for a World Cup for nearly FIFTY years!! There just was not any serious interest in investing in the professional game at a serious level. Rich investors had just lost their shirts on the NASL, why would they invest in another league? The only way Division 1 Pro Soccer was going to work at that time was if the risks were minimized. Instituting a league where you could get relegated, doesn't really do much to minimize risk now does it? Even with minimizing the risks, Soccer was a tough sell to investors. And this was AFTER the US had hosted what is still the most successful World Cup (attendance and money wise).
As for the original question, I don't think anything changed regarding the federation's authority to determine its domestic league sanctioning. It's just that the USSF was in a peculiar situation where in the World Cup bid it had promised FIFA it would start a new Division I league. By the letter of that promise, it could have just used its domestic sanctioning authority and declared the existing APSL to be the Division I league, but its likely that the commitment to FIFA carried an implicit understanding that the Division I league needed to meet a certain standard of quality that FIFA would accept.
They rejected a plan for pro/rel from Werner Fricker in 1988 that would've given a 3-tiered professional league structure and instead chose MLS as D1 with the league having to create franchises from scratch instead of simply putting existing clubs into a new system. US soccer always mess things up and fail to see simple solutions that would've saved time and energy and instead create problems.
US soccer, or USSF. They could've simply had an open competition to form a new D1 league but they instead created MLS as their puppet so MLS could be protected while lower division soccer is still a mess. MLS is pure communism, and people defending and supporting the league should be sent to the gulag along with MLS execs.
OK, I'm responding to a red carded troll, but I think it's funny he didn't get my point, which is about the impossibility of time travel.
I know that he's been red carded but the Fricker plan was not for automatic promotion and relegation based on merit. "The setup likely will resemble closely the NCAA's Division I, II and III. As with that system, teams would not be subject to promotion or relegation based on year-to-year performance. Most multi-tiered league systems around the world are comprised entirely of professional and semiprofessional teams, with the best teams in a lower division moving up and the worst teams in a higher division moving down after each season." ""We expect to write standards for the three levels immediately {following the USSF National Council meeting}, hopefully within the next three months, and have the first phase organized to start play in 1989," Fricker said. "I don't know yet whether the first phase will be Division 1, Division 2 or Division 3. I think that's going to depend on what the standards are for the three levels, where the present top clubs fit in and how to lay out the phasing plan, which I see as a four-year plan." Washington Post - July 1988