Vancouver announced they were joining MLS in the spring of 2009, before the whole conflict that created the NASL in the first place. Also, anybody who was paying attention should have known that Montreal would be leaving shortly thereafter, they'd been courting the league for years, and it was rumored that they could have come into MLS in 2009 but Saputo balked at the expansion fee. They were accepted into the league the very next year.
Not to mention, these teams, and MNU and others that left for USL, were not stolen away from NASL out of spite or competitive destruction. These clubs sought MLS/USL because they felt they had something better to offer than NASL could offer. My favorite is when people try to argue that MLS "killed" the silverbacks by giving ATL an expansion franchise. They act as though the Silverbacks were some strong, stable franchise. They don't mention that the owner did not make money from the team, and could actually make more money by renting the park on those nights. They also don't mention mention that the club struggled to exist before MLS to ATL was even initially discussed. But yea, MLS accepted a bid from some random dude with limited business and sports experience, to play in some junky stadium simply because they wanted to kill the NASL's ATL franchise which was drawing 3-6k per game. It's so obvious.
Indeed this "MLS or USL killed NASL" narrative is just wishful thinking and a false narrative. NASL killed itself. USSF just gave them enough rope to do it... over and over and over. They finally ran out of rope.
Saputo actually was fighting MLS for years. He tried to get the other A League owners to stay and compete with MLS. He was a loudmouth in the vein of Silva. Over the top and out there. Only when it became clear that Seattle, PDX, Vancouver were all leaving did he start to try and "court" MLS. That "courting" was him being even more dickish publicly about expansion fee, expanding his stadium, whining about how it wasn't fair, etc....until MLS basically told him that they didn't need him if he didn't want to join. It was his call. Joey STFUP and joined. Before the reborn NASL Cosmos/Peterson and now Silva clowns there was Joey the Jerk. Yeah....I was paying attention.
I remember that vividly! Joey kept harping about how his team was on par with MLS and how they need Montreal not the other way around. Well he decided to protect his investment by joining the league and I don't think he's got a problem with MLS anymore.
He does, actually. MLS's aggressive growth is making it harder for "small teams" like the Impact to keep up: Saputo sur les investissements MLS (ex:Atlanta): "Ça devient de +en+ difficile pour les petites équipes comme nous de compétitionner" #IMFC— Vincent Destouches (@100_Soccer) July 26, 2017
So he's joining the CPL now? Spend less time in Italy on your pet project and more time in Montreal. Get real blow hard.
Let him leave. The reality is he never really wanted to join MLS. He was forced to after everyone else abandoned him. He said MLS needed him, MLS said nice knowing you, and he crumbled. He has always acted small time and is small time. Nothing new here. Spoiled blowhard brat who has whined his entire life, no matter what the endeavor. In the CPL he could act like a big fish....which is all that matters to the little narcissist. He has complained endlessly since he has joined. He is a little bitch if there ever was one. BTW....have mentioned that I have dealt with his family before. Unprofessional small timers who want to be big timers. It's no shock Joey acts this way. Dad's mob connections can't help him in this arena.
You know what's funny about that? All the responses from locals calling BS on that remark! He simply needs to focus on MTL a little more and less on Bologna and he'll do fine. Besides what options does he have? Join the CPL? Sure but if that league goes belly up (which is a very real possibility) I seriously doubt MLS would be so welcoming to them coming back.
I don't the CPL will fold but I do think the Impact will be terrible, on and off the field, if they ever left MLS.
I got the timeline backwards because I C&Ped it. In saying that, I still feel the point was a valid one. Teams were unhappy for years under the Marcos/Holt regime, it was the sale to NuRock which brought it to a head. Saputo was boxed in and, as has been pointed out here, never really wanted to buy into.
Nov. 10, 2009: The Atlanta Silverbacks had, by that point, been around since 1998 (rising from what was left of the Ruckus), but Boris Jerkunica had not owned them the entire time. Jerkunica certainly had issues with USL and had actually pulled them out of USL after the 2008 season. The Carolina Railhawks had played all of three seasons in USL-1 at that point. Selby Wellman owned them, said at the time of the split he had issues with USL (which were actually laughable when he finally did verbalize them), but did not stick around for the actual launch of the NASL. Miami FC (not the current Miami FC) had been around since 2006 and was owned by Traffic USA. I think everyone's familiar with their work. No wonder they wanted to control their own league. The Minnesota Thunder were owned by a con man who bailed on the club in 2009, leaving staff, players, vendors and the league holding the bag for unpaid bills and wages. If he was pissed at USL, well, it was not one of his top issues. The owner of the Montreal Impact, Joey Saputo, had openly fueded with USL for years, going so far as to remove the team from the A-League in 1999 before returning in 2000. He seems to have issues with everyone he works with. The Vancouver Whitecaps had been awarded an MLS franchise seven months prior to the announcement of the split, did not blast USL on their way out the door and seem to have merely needed a place to crash for a bit before they could begin play in MLS in 2011. At the time, it was reported they would place a team in the NASL as well, but they never did. "St. Louis Soccer United" became AC St. Louis. At the time of the split, they did not actually exist (and a year later, they would return to dust). So that's a team that didn't exist and could not have had issues with USL for years, one that didn't actually make it clear what their issues were if they had any and were out the door in any case, two owned by con men, one with specious concerns and two whose owners clearly were not fans of Marcos. There's no question the sale to NuRock was an impetus (which seems ridiculous in retrospect, because Jeff Cooper was not in a position to run a team, much less a league). But it's revisionist history to claim that even most of the TOA breakaway brigade had been suffering for years and years under the USL regime. (The fact five of those seven later went, as we say, belly-up kind of puts paid to the idea that they were being kept from amazing success by Francisco Marcos.)
Disappointed. When I saw the thread title, I thought we were gonna get a retrospective of Le Manic de Montreal.