USL and Team Owners Association Update – Wednesday 10/07/09

Several bits of news to report on today. First from IMS partner site The Kartik Report. Kartik Krishnaiyer is stating this morning that he is being told from “sources close to the situation, that despite having the USSF, TOA, MLS and USL all meeting together, a solution is not at hand and may not be achieved this week.” This of course is in regard to the meeting that these parties are conducting in New York.

In regard to those meetings, IMS learned late last night that if Don Garber had been involved with those meetings it must have only been for a short while as he was a keynote speaker today at the “Leaders in Football” conference taking place at Stamford Bridge in London, England.

He will be speaking on “Managing the wealth gap: Who are the winners and losers?” Robert Jonas at Major League Soccer Talk has a well-written article concerning Garber and what he might be saying at the conference.

Concerning Garber’s speech, Football League’s chairman Lord Mawhinney said yesterday that MLS offered “if not a blueprint, a guide as European football starts looking at financial fair play.” He said: “That is the key to the stability that exists in our major leagues. I’m not so sure that same stability exists around the world.” Please see The Independent for that fine article concerning the matter.

USSF President Sunil Gulati, who is also president of Kraft Soccer (owners of New England Revolution), will also be presenting at the conference on Thursday along with Tim Leiweke, President and CEO, AEG. Their subject: Football in a global recession: winners, losers and how to ride out the storm. This seems to be a subject that would be close to the heart of both USL and the TOA.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, Krishnaiyer is also saying that a possible scenario is for a new league to form much like the English Premier League did in 1991. “TV contracts and marketing of the new league would be handled by the TOA, while they would maintain an association with USL.” Please see The Kartik Report for his information on the situation.

Krishnaiyer also mentions something that has been thrown around a bit since the emergence of the TOA, and that is the FIFA international calendar year. But sources close the situation have told IMS that the FIFA calendar year issue has gotten blown way out of proportion and was something that was once mentioned in a meeting. At this point and time, the TOA have no intention of changing the current calendar schedule for teams but they would be open minded enough to consider it in the future should it be presented in a way that worked for everyone involved.

Hammerheads are gone!
Another development in the USL yesterday is that Matthew Weibe, Senior Director of Franchise Development with USL, confirmed yesterday that the successful USL-2 club, Wilmington Hammerheads have been removed from the league. Wilmington, like the USL-1 clubs that were members of the TOA and had their teams’ information removed from the official USL website, were also scrubbed from the League site.

“We have discontinued our relationship with Chuck Sullivan (team owner),”  Weibe said.  “The USL is a franchised based league, where certain requirements must be met and in this case they were not met.”

Sullivan had a slightly different take on the situation. “I have not been presented with any paperwork from the League,” said Sullivan. “I am currently in contact with the League via email.  There are a number of issues that we are discussing.”

Willmington who won the league in 2003 has been involved with USL since 1996. This past season they had a 12-5-3 overall record.  The league named Hammerhead’s David Irving Coach of the Year and  Jamie Watson Player of the year.