Well folks, a lot has happened in the last 24 hours. Rather than write a really long post, I'm just going to upload a PDF with the email exchange. Frankly, you can read it for yourselves and see exactly what kind of people we are dealing with in this state. MYSA has stated its intention to appoint its own SRA. It says it will do this in combined effort with MSA, but MSA has clearly indicated it has no such intention to cooperate in this attempt to usurp the current state referee committee. MYSA is partaking in this action in spite of the fact that US Soccer has informed MYSA that (a) the SRA never resigned; (b) MYSA and MSA never took any recognized steps to remove the SRA from her position; and (c) US Soccer recognizes Paula Hildman as the SRA through the end of her appointed term of August 2015.
If you don't feel like reading the whole thing: MYSA asked the SRC including Vetshak to sign an agreement, with the main point being that the SRC would remain in office until August 2014 instead of 2015 as scheduled Vetshak replied with changes he wanted to the agreement and that the proposal as written was unacceptable MYSA said "take it or leave it" with a deadline of yesterday so the MYSA and MSA could vote on it. MSA said the changes Vetshak wanted were worth talking about and would not vote on the agreement yesterday MYSA said they are proceeding to find replacements for the SRC and would have USSF handle or provide materials for referee certification, seemingly without the involvement of the SRC.
So.. The MYSA had declared they have broken with the USSF? I think they are too far away to join the Republic of Cascadia FA.
I would say send this to all the club presidents and DOCs, but 80% of them probably don't care and would just delete it. If they are anything like most of the ones around my area they are too busy drinking beer and playing golf with all the money they have fleeced off unknowing parents that are impressed with European accents.
I said it before and I'll say it again ... "Looks like I picked a bad year to become a soccer referee."
Well, I heard some good news from people who attended MYSA Winter's Symposium tonight, but for MN referees, I'll advise you to contact your club's referee coordinator for more information.
I heard the same thing, Doug. Hopefully the youth will take steps to put their house in order, wherever that may lead them...
MSA president Ben O'Brien sent out the attached email this morning, on the heels of what happened at the MYSA Symposium last night. I do think that one way or another this will reach a conclusion in the next 2 weeks.
The MYSA website posted their own update on the SRC status a short while ago: http://www.mnyouthsoccer.org/news_article/show/345417
I guess I'll just say I'm glad they posted something. Of course, not a lot of details there, and they seem to be telling people that they are sticking to their guns on the resignation issue and that they are going to move forward under the assumption that the three of us are not going to accept their terms. Our SDA is working on something to post on our site, but I know it's just going to look like two people spitting at each other. Such an ugly mess at this point. Sure would be nice if MYSA actually would sit down and talk with an open mind.
Nice how they point out there's a lot of inaccurate and incomplete information being sent out without mentioning they're the ones doing it.
I am guessing the reference to "inaccurate and incomplete information" is probably an attempt to head off Ben's email as that is spreading virally from club to club. I'm really surprised they published such a vague statement. My reference to the Symposium earlier... I wanted people to have a chance to talk to their clubs first to hear it from them. I was told that there was an admin session with club directors in which they forced the MYSA president to answer questions about what was going on. From what I heard (I wasn't there, obviously), there was extreme dissatisfaction in his responses, and they demanded he come to the table to sit down with MSA and the current SRC to discuss a resolution. They basically told him, "We elected you, you work for us, now fix this or else." MYSA posted its correspondence. That correspondence repeatedly insinuates that the SRA, SDI, and SAC positions are open and that MYSA is going to move forward without us. But that runs in direct contrast with what the clubs supposedly ordered MYSA to do on Saturday. Furthermore, MYSA has a board meeting on February 8. If I was them, I would have sat on my hands for a week and then talked about it, as a board, to decide how they planned on proceeding. I, for one, would have been neither surprised or upset to see nothing for the next week, and if anybody asked them if they were doing anything, they could have just told people, "We're discussing it at our board meeting on February 8, we need to consult as a board." That would have been perfectly reasonable. That's what makes this posting on the MYSA website such a tactically odd choice. If was one of those admins that had been sitting in the room on Saturday and I saw this, I'm not sure I would feel confident that I my message had sunk in. Maybe, but if I told MYSA to negotiate and instead they post an email saying they have no intention of doing so (even if they do)... well, I dunno.
I think it's abundantly clear by now that the MYSA president has no intention of doing that. He has defied the SRC, MSA, USSF, and now the people that elected and re-elected him. There are provisions in the MYSA by-laws that allow the MYSA membership to remove any board member. There are also provisions that allow the sitting MYSA board to re-instate any board member that is removed. He must be banking on having enough supporters on the current board, as his term is not up until 2015. If I was a neutral party (and now that I think about it - I am), I would ask him if the currently distributed information is in fact false, what's the truth? Basically he has provided no alternative reason why he is trying so hard to remove the current SRC.
Or, frankly, why this is so important to him. Admit it, referees are really NOT the central part of the mission of MYSA.
For whatever reason, it seems like he has put himself in a position where he either can not or will not back down. Victory or death. From my vantage point far outside the situation it looks like Minnesota will either have a new SRC or a new MYSA president.
Too bad the board of director's meeting isn't like a town hall. I wonder what Mr. Poretti would do if a bunch of people showed up in sweatshirts emblazoned with vetshak's Honora Nostrum Arbiter logo.
High School student government. Some people just never grow up. Jenny said you said something not nice about Mary to Tommy. We will now destroy you, and don't care if Rome burns doing it. Sounds like it is time for the Teacher Oversight Sponsor to step in and bring the parents in. (of course in today's society, the parents are just as likely to burn down Venice too before they will admit any mistake by their little special one... [ and don't even go there, my wife works in an elementary school] ).
Our SDA put something together that we posted tonight, just to give people access to as much information and answers as possible: https://www.minnesotasrc.com/index.php?PAGE=MYSAIssue
So MYSA has stated they intend to use USSoccer's "online system". If USSoccer recognizes the current Minnesota SRA, would they allow it?
threeputzzz, that's yet another flaw in Mr. Poretti's thinking. You see, right now USSF is transitioning its online registration system from USSoccer.info to ussoccer.force.com. The Force site, when I checked last week, is not accepting registrations except for national folks at this time (Perhaps another state is using it? I couldn't get into my own account on it.) The .info site is actually maintained by each state's SRA, and if you are a MN referee and log into your account on that site, you get blocked with a statement telling you that you have to register at minnesotasrc.com. The only person with admin access to this page is the SRA, and US Soccer states Paula is recognized as the SRA. So if MYSA went to USSF and said, "We appoint Joe Schmoe as SRA, please give Joe access to .info so he can activate registration for MN referees," USSF would likely (I am hypothesizing) respond, "Um, we told you, Paula Hildman is the SRA, so no, Joe Schmoe may not have access to .info." If you read the links that we posted to correspondence on our web page, you can see how Mr. Poretti has responded to Greg Fike with US Soccer in terms of his attitude. I did not post Greg's response in the correspondence... it didn't really provide any novel information, because you can tell Greg and USSF went into shutdown legal mode and decided, "OK, this guy has lost all sense of showing respect, so we are answering his questions and nothing more." Therefore, while I can't absolutely predict what USSF would do if MYSA tried to appoint an SRA without MSA's approval, the reason that is the case is because USSF is now only answering questions that are asked, and nothing more. They're willing to let MYSA try anything they want and will only intervene if and when they are forced to do so. Greg Fike is not the legal counsel for MYSA, he has no client requirement to provide advice or suggest possible consequences for any actions MYSA decides to try. But the writing on the wall is there. MYSA is telling people, "Don't worry, we're going to do this, it's fine." In fact, there is so much detachment from how the referee registration process actually works, they have no idea what kinds of roadblocks they are going to run into.