http://www.antiguaobserver.com/cudas-fate-being-pondered A lot of words burned to say, "If we can afford it...."
Quote from that article: "We need this for Antigua. It's all about Antigua and Antigua's football. The whole idea of having the Barracuda set-up is to have a good feeding ground for our national team" ...if he had stopped there, it would be believable... Quote: "and also to give the opportunity to the youngsters in this country to blossom themselves out there so that they could be selected into another team in the US or the United Kingdom or other parts of the world." ...gotta' be kidding me. Also, if having "20 guys on the road for five months" is too much, it sounds like a PDL / NPSL side is more reasonable, in both level of competition, and time-frame.
PDL is largely a U-23 league, which would make more sense for them if they were truly looking to feed their senior national team (tee hee). They only had a handful of U-23 players on the USL Pro team this year. Also, if having 20 guys on the road for five months is a problem, here's a novel solution: play half your games at home.
Actually its not yet bad news. USL revoked the ownership rights of Phoenix FC and then said there is a new owner who will run the team for 2014. Long term, though, there are still problems to be resolved there.
Or Tim Holt is just bluffing http://www.azkicksit.com/report-no-ownership-group-in-place-for-phoenix-fc/
Worse case scenario they will be a league run team for a year. Still none of this is actually good news, but it does seem like there will be a team next year. Seems more like a Edmonton Aviators story then a Virginia Beach Mariners one at this point.
Fav line: My crazy prediction from left field is, the franchise is lifted of all debts and the franchise is then relocated to California or Utah to serve as the USL PRO affiliate of the LA Galaxy and Real Salt Lake, respectively.
MLS wants part of the action... http://www.socceramerica.com/articl...rectly-to-caribbean-source.html?edition=10806
Considering how many Caribbeans are already in MLS, I doubt this is much more than a PR thing. It's mostly for coaching staff to enjoy the beach there.
The league that doesn't actually exist yet? That as of now, is nothing more than the idea of Jeffrey Webb, and which has to have a committee set up to even consider it? They're going to get 20 teams from a region of the world that maybe has half that many actual competitive teams and organizations and they're going to have $3M (and eventually $5M) in prize money...that's going to come from where, exactly? Barracuda FC existed prior to joining USL Pro. I would imagine they could continue to exist, and it would actually be in their best interests to join some sort of conglomeration of Caribbean teams. It would reduce their travel costs, and keep them from getting their doors blown off by teams stateside. And playing in USL Pro hasn't exactly been a boon to their national team program, so who's kidding whom?
the end of Antigua.... http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/antigua-barracuda-indefinite-hiatus-4000641#.UtvmXRzXdFV
It's not a crime, it's just kind of redundant and unnecessary. But by all means, continue to play the martyr.