Tony Glavin Speaks Concerning USL-1 Rights in St. Louis

Tony Glavin’s heart has been in the right place since the beginning of his coaching career: Developing the game of soccer in the US and developing players in St. Louis.

Tony Glavin

If you drop the name Tony Glavin in soccer circles in the US you will hear about the very successful Tony Glavin Soccer Club out of St. Louis, Missouri. While Glavin is known these days for the youth club he built, he was once a professional soccer player who came to the US from Scotland over 30 years ago. In fact, Glavin was just 19 years old when he played for his first US team, the Philadelphia Fury of the old North America Soccer League.

In 1980 Glavin moved to St. Louis to play for the Steamers indoor team, the last professional soccer team in St. Louis. So the former Scottish player and current trainer was excited in 2005 when he purchased the rights from the United Soccer Leagues (USL) for a Premier Development League (PDL) team, named the Lions. “My goal since purchasing the PDL St. Louis Lions has always been to bring professional soccer back to St. Louis,” said Glavin. “I always felt the best way to do that was by first building the youth program, then bringing in a PDL team and eventually a pro team.” Glavin says it has been over 30 years since the area has had outdoor pro soccer.

“My focus early on was developing the youth player,” said Glavin. “In more recent years I’ve focused on turning the elite player into a pro.” He said with the maturation of his club the pro team seemed to be a natural outgrowth.

Glavin said he made sure he had first rights for a USL-1, USL-2 and W-League teams for the St. Louis area as part of his agreement with USL when he purchased the franchise rights to the Lions.

When there was talk of a Major League Soccer (MLS) team possibly coming to St. Louis, Glavin said he decided he wasn’t going to try to buck up against that so he “put the brakes on.” But once MLS no longer seemed interested in the area, he felt it was time to move forward. Glavin said he publicly stated a year ago that he wanted to exercise his right to start a USL-1 team in either 2010 or 2011. But with USL for sale and the roller-coaster that the league seemed to be going through, 2011 seemed the better choice.

Glavin is aware of the chaos that has sprung up recently with the new North American Soccer League (NASL) and USL and has spoken to officials from USL numerous times over the last several months regarding the turmoil. He says he still wants to start a pro team in 2011 however, more than anything, he wants “what is right for soccer in St Louis.”

St. Louis attorney Jeff Cooper announced a new pro team on December 8th, 2009. The team named AC St. Louis would be part of the new NASL if it was sanctioned as a Division II soccer league. But the United States Soccer Federation turned down both the NASL’s request for sanctioning as well as the USL who had previously been sanctioned as the Division II league in the US and Canada. They gave both leagues 7 days to work out details of a compromise. That deadline is up on Wednesday, January 6th. As part of that compromise the two leagues will have to work out an arrangement between Glavin and Cooper. Glavin says he has not been contacted by the NASL or Jeff Cooper up to this point.

I asked Glavin if he was compensated properly for the rights, would he have a  problem with Copper running a pro soccer team in St. Louis. “I don’t want to damage anything for the good of pro soccer in St. Louis,” replied Glavin. “If it was Cooper’s group or whomever, I will be supportive as long as their primarily concern is the development of the game and development of players. That’s what I’m most interested in, building the game itself and development of the game in St. Louis.”