Futbol USA, I believe. First actual word in the body of the story, so it's easy to miss. They say "predominantly" and "emphasis." But even if not, here's what would have to happen: 1 - They'd have to employ only Latinos 2 - They'd have to deny non-Latinos employment based solely on the fact they were not Latinos 3 - One or more of said non-Latinos would have to sue and 4 - There would have to be someone to sue They haven't done 1 or 2 yet, three could not happen until 1 and 2 happened and it's not going to matter anyway because of number 4.
This is on their website: http://www.futbolusa.com/players And this on the About FUSA page: And in the news release:
I would imagine they could attempt to qualify through USASA or US Club Soccer, couldn't they? The same as any other league. If they are going to pretend to be professional, they'd have to be at least DIII (and meet those standards) to wedge their way into the pro section of the USOC.
What's really sad, though, is that when a league like this is 'announced' there are a lot of young men who really believe this is going to be their chance to realize a dream of playing professional soccer. And there are a lot of crappy 40+ hours a week jobs out there that pay less than $30k.
Rather than start another thread about the litany of alphabet soup leagues, could I ask if anybody knows anything about the UPSL in here?
He was the owner of the (original) San Diego Flash back in the late 1990s. Had grand ideas of the first publicly traded soccer club in the country and San Diego Soccer Development Corporation was also going to run an A-League team in Las Vegas (the Strikers) and they did briefly have a D3 team in Riverside County. The whole deal fell apart for a variety of reasons. He also owned San Diego Boca in the NPSL, along with a variety of other entrepreneurial ventures. Yeah, let's call them entrepreneurial ventures. There are those who will say if you shake hands with him, count your fingers. Longtime followers of the lower levels remember. Caveat emptor.
At the same time, USA is a very big country and is extremely populated, so a lot of potential players will be overlooked and miss out. If you ask me; 3 divisions aren't enough to cover all of USA; there are still plenty of big cities that are yet to be looked at. USA does need a fourth pro division IMO.
The "potential player who slips through the cracks" is a bit of a unicorn, and is not likely to be uncovered by a league such as this one. (Which has very little chance of survival or of becoming akin to a fourth-division professional league.) There are, today, 186 men's outdoor soccer teams in MLS, the NASL, the USL, the PDL and the NPSL and another handful in the ASL, the UPSL and whatever other townie leagues there are. That's somewhere between 3,500-4,000 players. Who are we missing, exactly? Who's slipping through the cracks and not getting a chance? The largest metro areas in the country without a bona fide professional team are: San Francisco-Oakland (separate from San Jose) - #11, 4.6 million population (there are NPSL teams there) Riverside-San Bernardino (separate from LA) - #13, 4.4 million population Detroit - #14, 4.3 million population (does have an NPSL team of some consequence) San Diego - #17, 3.3 million (does have a couple of NPSL teams around) Baltimore - #20, 2.8 million (has a PDL team) Cincinnati - #28, 2.1 million (has a PDL team) Then it's Las Vegas, Cleveland, Nashville, Virginia Beach, Providence, Milwaukee, Memphis, New Orleans and Hartford (and Hartford will have an NASL team soon). There are places you could slot a team, if you wanted to just go down a list of the largest metro areas without one. But why aren't people doing it? This is a boom time for pro outdoor soccer, an unprecedented combination of interest and potential and infrastructure. Why doesn't someone start a league with San Francisco, the Inland Empire, Detroit, San Diego, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Vegas, Cleveland, Nashville, Virginia Beach, Providence, Milwaukee, Memphis and New Orleans? Because you have to have owners and they have to pay money and get stadium solutions? Maybe. We have more professional teams now (55) than at any point since 2000 (when we had 59). The high point was 79 in 1998, and a lot of them were crap. (By my count, 7 of the 39 DIII teams that year are still around, and only 8 of the 28 DII teams are.) Anybody who sees an under-served market and wants to tap into it can certainly do that. I doubt very seriously that people with no track record who say they're going to be the biggest thing there is five years after they put out their first press release is going to be able to pull it off, but, hey, knock yourself out.
And now...yet ANOTHER new league, capitalizing on the GROWING DEMAND that we take no-name clubs and pretend to play promotion and relegation with them. http://www.unitedstatessoccerleagues.org/ussl/ OPEN PYRAMIDS are like catnip to these people.
Meanwhile, the original league in question in the OP obviously did not start in September 2015 as originally stated, but now says the fall of 2016. Because they are, surely, justthisclose to being ready and another 10 months will make the difference!
Their goal with this sale of T-shirts is to raise $1,000. Huh? Just what are they going to accomplish with $1,000?
Legitimize their trademark squatting in the event a REAL league with the name United States Soccer Leagues comes along, i'd guess. http://www.lawinc.com/trademark-squatting-washington-pandas Oh yeah, have one heckuva party too.
These people - all of them - are going at this bass-ackwards. They are so hell-bent on this dream of us looking like Europe that they completely ignore the reasons promotion and relegation came to be in the first place. You have to have too many teams at a level for it to be neessary. But rather than focusing on getting sufficient quality teams, they want to START with the premise of pro/rel and hope THAT attracts teams. You have to get teams first. That's where the focus should be. And it isn't. They are creating a solution to a problem they do not even have. And good luck attracting people with the "Oh, and did I mention your team could get relegated? Look, squirrel!" thing.
FWIW, the UPSL has dragooned the carcass of the Phoenix Monsoon and three other supposedly local teams into an Arizona division of sorts.
I anxiously look forward to the magical day when all the competitive and financial benefits that promotion/relegation advocates claim will appear actually DO appear, the United States becomes a soccer utopia rivaling the biggest European leagues and the MLS crony mafia is a thing of the past. In other news, I'm not holding my breath.