David Fellerath ·
7 Jan 2010, 5:20 PM ·
Comment
There will be soccer in Cary this season after all.
After months of uncertainty surrounding the status of second-division soccer in the United States, officials with the United States Soccer Federation and representatives of two contending organizations announced today that the United Soccer Leagues and the nascent North American Soccer League would soldier through a provisional season under an unusual compromise arrangement. As part of this temporary resolution, all pending claims between the leagues and its parties will be dropped.
The two leagues will play a season divided into two conferences, the USL Conference and the NASL Conference. Each conference will have six teams, with the Carolina RailHawks falling into the NASL Conference.
| USL CONFERENCE |
NASL CONFERENCE |
| Rochester |
Montreal |
| Portland |
Vancouver |
| Puerto Rico |
Crystal Palace (Baltimore) |
| Minnesota |
St. Louis |
| Austin |
Carolina |
| Tampa Bay |
Miami |
A few things to notice about this provisional arrangement: Continue reading »
Carolina RailHawks, Soccer Alek Papadakis, Carolina RailHawks, D2, Division 2, MLS, NASL, New England Revolution, Sunil Gulati, TOA, US Soccer, USL
David Fellerath ·
3 Dec 2009, 11:13 AM ·
6 Comments
While flipping through my soccer channels in search of a game, I spotted USL Breakaways on Fox Soccer Channel and taped it. Given the news of the past few weeks, and the generally clumsy PR operation of the United Soccer Leagues, I wanted to see how the USL is presenting itself.
I watched the hour-long program, which was hosted by Andrew Bell, former marketing director and current president of the Charleston Battery, who is young, British (Scottish?) and has a bit of Warren Barton about him (he’s also an FSC announcer). There wasn’t much news in this infomercial, produced for USL by Cultural Videos and Sports Communications, Inc., but I noticed a couple of points of emphasis.
First, the opening 30 minutes were devoted to the Super-Y league and its annual tournament in Tampa. We saw kids playing, and interviews with U15 players and coaches. No doubt intentionally, this segment spotlighted one of the main strengths of the United Soccer Leagues: fostering youth development.
After a segment featuring banquet highlights from the annual general meeting, and the Hall of Fame inductees (including Scott Schweitzer, star defender for Rochester who coached the Carolina RailHawks for its first two seasons), the theme of “development” was picked up midway through the program with an interview with USL President Tim Holt.
Holt didn’t engage directly with the fact that the first division that seems to have all but collapsed, but instead sounded the theme of “player development.”
Here are his remarks in full, with emphasis added:
Tim Holt: Yeah, it’s exciting, there’s a new direction, a new culture about USL. Probably most people know at this point, USL was acquired by NuRock Soccer Holdings from Nike, which was the previous owner. Nike Inc and the Umbro brands and Nike Soccer Brands will stay on as long-term partners in a 10-year partnership, so we get the best of both worlds. We have committed ownership from NuRock, Rob Hoskins, Alek Papadakis, their CEO. They’re soccer guys but they’re accomplished business executives, and they’re really bringing professional—more sophisticated approach to everything we do from our front-office standpoint, allowing us to serve our teams better. And it’s just a real exciting time, obviously, to be able to continue the relationship with Nike and Umbro, especially Umbro, the long time partners with USL, it’s very exciting. So we’re a few months into that transition, it’s been almost seamless, and we look forward to furthering that into 2010. Continue reading »
Carolina RailHawks, NASL, Soccer Alek Papadakis, Andrew Bell, Anton Peterlin, Brian Quarstad, Chris Economides, NASL, Scott Schweitzer, Tim Holt, USL
