Our entire thread for discussing Courage roster cuts was one of the casualities of BigSoccer's "restoration." Does anyone know if the new deadline for Courage roster cuts is still December 16 or has that deadline also been moved back?
Well now we get down to the real nitty gritty. Anyone that thinks this is simple money talks needs to pay attention. I suspect there's more than a small chance that the plug could get pulled completely. That has to be an option on the table. The threat of immediate cessation has to exist - at least as a bargaining tool. The question is whether or not the negotiations involve an attempt by the players to guarantee the completion of the 2003 season. Many league and team failures have occured mid-season. I'm guessing the ongoing discussion has more to do with accountancy than anything else. I don't know anyone that has ever claimed to see economic viability for the league beyond the WWC. At this point, they've got to worry about just getting that far at all. At least the big "startup" expenses are already over with. They've just got to figure out how to pay the ongoing expenses - including player salaries and benefits. I wouldn't be surprised at this point to see either contraction or relocation. If Philip Anschutz wants to spend some money, I can't see how they could avoid sending a team to LA. On the other hand, if one or more of the original backers cuts off the flow - who's going to step up to save all 8 teams. I hope I'm just being uneccesarily alarmist.
WOW!!! Andy, I don't normally agree with you, but this is the fear I posted on the WUSA message boards. This scares me a lot. Jerome gone, Marcia gone. Now they are talking about collective bargaining. I just hope I have a team to volunteer with next season. Kara
Re: WOW!!! If the league plays, you'll have a team. The SAS deal probably gives the Courage the best chance at financial success of any of the 8 teams. The downside is that it looks like the one investor ready to run for the hills is AOL Time Warner. If that happens, I could see contraction to 6 teams with the west coast abandoned to cut down on travel expense. The wild card of course is that the one financial "white knight" out there is Philip Anschutz. If AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group) wants in, there will be a team in Los Angeles next season. I've consistently heard rumors of the Charge to LA, and that was before they played the exhibition game at the Rose Bowl and posed for photos at the Carson construction site. I suspect WUSA is desperately trying to figure out how to hold on long enough to real in Anschutz. The fact is, if Anschutz gets Soccer Specific Stadia built in Carson, Harrisonville, and DC - WUSA teams, controlled by him, would be basically a way to fill up an additional 15 playing dates a year with minimal incremental expense. That's why I was saying earlier this year that the lesson of SAS Stadium is that the league needs to realign its teams with existing A-League and MLS soccer stadia and ownership for cost reasons. It would suck for existing locations, but the team could survive with teams in Charleston, Albequerque, Virginia Beach, Cary... Spartan Stadium, RFK, and even Herndon have to be huge unnecessary expenses.
Waiver Date Postponed Again! According to this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune, the WUSA waiver date that had been rescheduled for today has slipped again! So this means that the Courage still haven't announced a new coach, the CBA has not been finalized, the waiver draft hasn't taken place, and players trying out for the Courage are supposed to report to camp two weeks from this Monday. In case anyone is interested, here is the link to the rest of the article: Nebraska's loss a gain for Spirit
Re: Waiver Date Postponed Again! Looking at the roster page on the Courage website right now, they only list 17 players. I have no idea how accurate/official that is (the reserve players, who had been on there, are gone, as is Oleksiuk), but if it's current, it looks like the team won't have to worry about cutdown date, and even have room to claim someone else. Of course, every other team will get a crack at the waived players first...
Reserve Players Dropped From Player List Thanks for checking this FC Carolina. Yes, the names of all of the reserve players have been dropped and Minna Mustonen is still listed. If Minna ends up going to Northern Norway as rumored, then the Courage not only won't have to waive anyone, but would be in a position where they could actually pick up a player or two when the waiver draft finally takes place.
Reserve Players Already Released? I find it interesting that the Courage would drop their reserve players from the their website listing prior to the actual waiver deadline. I didn't think much of this before since I thought that waiving the reserve players was more or less just a formality and that they would all be invited back to tryout for the team. Well it just came to my attention that San Jose has invited former Courage reserve keeper Julie Podhrasky to their two day tryout starting this Saturday. I wonder if either of the other two reserve players will be trying out for the Courage or other clubs?
New Waiver "Deadline" Set Another Waiver "Deadline" has been set for tomorrow with the Waivers Draft scheduled for this coming Monday, February 24. Exercise of Option Date Set for Friday It now looks like the league has definitely decided to reduce the roster size from 18 to 16.
Current Courage Roster The roster page on the Courage website still has 17 players listed so at least one player will have to be cut tomorrow. I'm not sure what the financial incentive will be to reduce the roster to less than 16 players, but at the very least I expect that Minna Mustonen will be released.
I don't think there's a financial incentive to get to 16 players, it's just that if you want to be able to pick up anybody off of waivers, you'll have to have some empty spots. I agree with you, Nordby1, that Mustonen is a goner. She'd have to be, what with 5 foreign players on the roster right now. Prinz, Riise and Boyd are locks...that leaves Mustonen and Lehn. One of those two is a starter, the other has two international-caliber players ahead of her on the depth chart...hmm, I wonder who it will be.
Salary Cap Charge Prior to the postponement of the first "deadline" AndyMead posted something about there being a $5,000 charge against a team's salary cap for each player who does not end up getting waived until after the deadline. Perhaps all of that has changed along with the new CBA.
Re: New Waiver "Deadline" Set Here's something that was in the article that I find a bit confusing: So why exactly would this "Waiver Wire Process" be necessary?
Mustonen Going to Norway I don't want to give the impression that I am really down on Mustonen because I am not. I think she has a lot of potential, but if roster sizes are being cut to 16 and teams are only allowed to have four international players, it won't be possible for Minna to play for the Courage this season. Perhaps going over and playing in the Norwegian "Toppserien" for might be a really good move for her to make at this point in time. The club that I believe is interested in Minna is Fløya, which is located north of the artic circle (and too far from Finland) in the city of Tromsø.
Unni Lehn I would also include Unni Lehn as a "lock." Unni has a two year contract and if she is able to have a fast recovery from her surgery, I think Unni could have a very big season for the Courage this year.
Correction It is too late for me to go back and edit this post, but I just wanted to make it clear that I meant to write "(and NOT too far from Finland)." I believe that Tromsø is the only city in Norway with a population over about 30,000 that is reasonably close to the Finnish border.
Waivers Draft I might be wrong, but I don't think you had to have any "empty spots" to select players during the 2001 Waivers Draft. I believe that all you had to do was release another player within 24 hours of selecting a player in the draft.
I remember reading in one of the many articles announcing a (long-since expired) waiver deadline that teams claiming a player at the draft must either have an open roster spot or cut a player immediately when claiming. I think this is to allow other teams the opportunity to claim any players released during the draft while at the draft, instead of waiting until the waiver wire is implemented the next day. It's possible that the rules were different for 2002, and it's always a (large) possibility that I'm wrong now.