Showing posts tagged “Selby Wellman”
David Fellerath ·
8 Jan 2010, 9:36 AM ·
12 Comments
Selby Wellman (photo courtesy of Carolina RailHawks)
We spoke with Selby Wellman, majority owner of the Carolina RailHawks, after yesterday’s press conference in which Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation, announced a provisional agreement to keep Division 2 soccer going in 2010. Wellman spoke to us from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the North American Soccer League is holding its annual general meeting.
Among the highlights:
- Wellman said at least 11 teams will play in NASL in 2011, including a franchise to be announced within a couple of weeks.
- He said there are representatives of four prospective franchises also present in Fort Lauderdale.
- He acknowledged being the last holdout from the provisional agreement that was announced yesterday.
- NASL is filling league office positions, interviewing candidates in Fort Lauderdale this week.
- He acknowledged the possibility of playing on the fall-to-spring FIFA schedule, but said it is a low priority for now.
- Suggested some form of promotion/ relegation could occur within four to five years.
Triangle Offense: How do you feel about the news today?
Selby Wellman: Tremendous.
Seems like Gulati made clear this was a short-term arrangement.
Absolutely. This is nothing more than a 2010 transition. After two and a half years of work, we are going to launch North American Soccer League for 2011. And during this transition year we will launch our league. It’s a lot of work to launch a league and that’ll be our focus at the league level, to launch a league this year. The transition is nothing more than a way to compete on the field. There are nine NASL teams and three USL teams. Three of the NASL teams will play in the USL Conference, but they are members of the NASL body and they will be playing in the NASL in 2011.
Are the three NASL teams playing in the USL Conference going to have to, on any practical level, going to have to answer to the USL, or is the division just cosmetic?
No. It’s totally cosmetic. All of us report to the USSF, in terms of administrations, scheduling, disciplinary actions, things like that. That’s on the field. Off the field, the USL will run their business—and they have three teams in that business—and we will run our business-and we have nine teams in that business.
You’re having a general meeting [in Fort Lauderdale] right now. Do you have nine teams meeting there?
We have nine teams and we have four visiting teams that are prospects that would like to consider joining our league.
They are there to consider you or you to consider them?
Both. Meet everybody, chat with them, start talking about 2011 and joining the NASL.
Is Atlanta one of them?
No, Atlanta is already a member of NASL. They’re not part of the nine, though. We have nine team that will play in 2010. Atlanta will rejoin the league in 2011. They’re number 10. We’ll have an announcement of another franchise within the next two weeks that will start in 2011. That will be 11. Then we have four others here who are talking with us and will be meeting with us about 2011.
Can you tell us which markets they represent?
No, I really wouldn’t. But I can tell you they’re major markets. It wouldn’t be right to share that at this time. Continue reading »
Carolina RailHawks, Soccer Atlanta, Baltimore Crystal Palace, FIFA calendar, Harminder Paul Singh, NASL, promotion/ relegation, Rochester, Selby Wellman, Sunil Gulati, Tampa Bay, US Soccer, USL, USSF
Joe Schwartz ·
24 Nov 2009, 11:12 AM ·
1 Comment
Pelé, seen in the film Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos (Miramax Films)
Carolina RailHawks majority owner Selby Wellman expects at least 10 teams to be in the newly named North American Soccer League, though he declined to name the possible additions to the nine confirmed ownership groups.
Wellman and fellow owners announced Monday that they will bring back the NASL name, conjuring up memories of the first American professional soccer league, which included the likes of Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff before it folded in 1984.
“We talked about it a long time. There’s pros and cons because the league didn’t make it, that would be the con. The pro is it really did launch professional soccer in
America and had a good brand,” he said. “There’s a lot of us around here with some gray hair that’ll say, ‘I remember that brand.’”
The league now has a name, but the owners have a lot of questions to answer before the first ball is kicked in April. Along with the RailHawks, former USL teams Atlanta Silverbacks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps FC are part of NASL. St. Louis Soccer United, Tampa Bay Rowdies and Crystal Palace Baltimore also are slated for inclusion in the breakaway league.
Others have speculated that Rochester Rhinos may be included, but Wellman, also the spokesman for the new league, isn’t saying as of yet.
“I can’t name them,” he said. “We already have plans underway, and we’re getting all kinds of requests coming in from different groups.” Continue reading »
Carolina RailHawks, Soccer Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina RailHawks, Crystal Palace Baltimore, Don Garber, Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, MLS, Montreal Impact, NASL, Pele, Rochester Rhinos, Selby Wellman, St. Louis Soccer United, Tampa Bay Rowdies, TOA, USL, Vancouver Whitecaps FC
David Fellerath ·
2 Sep 2009, 9:56 AM ·
7 Comments
Carolina RailHawks majority owner Selby Wellman (Photo courtesy of RailHawks)
On Monday, we spoke with Selby Wellman, majority owner of the Carolina RailHawks. Wellman is also the spokesman for the Team Owners Association, which has announced a “chill” in its relations with the USL and declared that it will pursue aggressively all options—including the formation of a new league—as a solution to establishing the owner-controlled league it says is vital to the success of their clubs.
Wellman gave us more details about the buildup to the sale of the league to NuRock Soccer Holdings (a group unknown to him and his fellow owners), and about why he and his fellow club owners think an owner-controlled league is vital. He suggested that the declining attendance experienced by the RailHawks and other clubs is an issue of poor-to-nonexistent league marketing and reiterated that the owners have decided it’s time to “take control of our own destiny.”
He noted that the USL-1 clubs make single-year commitments to participate in the league, and that in a month or so, the league will approach the owners about committing for next season. But, “If they don’t come to the table with us having the ability to control our league, we won’t play with them,” Wellman says.
For background on the sale, see posts here and here. Also, Kartik Krishnaiyer of majorleaguesoccertalk.com and others are working on a multipart, in-depth series on the USL sale. Here’s today’s Part III.
Triangle Offense: Last Wednesday, after the Miami game, I spoke with Brian [Wellman, the team president] and he said there was nothing but silence coming from the USL about where they were on the sale. Did it all come down Thursday? Did it catch everybody by surprise?
Selby Wellman: Nike called the group in St. Louis that we were teamed up with to buy the league and told them that ‘we had changed our mind and we were selling it to another group’ after a month of negotiations. And the issue is they sold it to a group, basically it’s a non-team, non-USL-1 team entity, it’s a large real estate developer in Atlanta along with his partner who owns a PDL team. So we were upset with that, and we didn’t think it was right, because we’ve been working for almost two years [inaudible] and Nike to restructure this league to where it would have the ownership control like all other sports leagues around the world. The USL did not promote itself, did not do anything at all that a league should do. So we wanted to buy it and take it over. Continue reading »
Carolina RailHawks, Soccer Brian Wellman, Don Garber, Mark Abbott, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact, NuRock Soccer Holdings, Selby Wellman, USL, Vancouver Whitecaps
David Fellerath ·
31 Aug 2009, 5:46 PM ·
1 Comment
UPDATE 6:39 p.m.: Moments ago, the USL announced an executive restructuring. The gist: “NuRock’s Rob Hoskins will serve as Chairman with Alec Papadakis being named CEO. USL’s Tim Holt has been named President of the organization with founder Francisco Marcos transitioning to the position of President Emeritus and Senior Director of International Development.”
Last Thursday, Nike sold the USL to NuRock Soccer Holdings, an Atlanta-based concern. As the days passed, it became increasingly clear that Nike’s failure to sell the league to a group of USL club owners caught everyone by surprise.
This afternoon, the Carolina RailHawks released a statement that is something like a thrown-down gauntlet. Titled “Team Owners Association Chills Relations with USL After Nike Sells USL to Non-Team Third Party,” the message couldn’t be more plain.
Selby Wellman, a member of the RailHawks’ ownership group, is listed as the spokesperson for the dissident owners’ group.
The bottom line is that five of the 11 currently active USL-1 clubs have not committed to playing in the league for the 2010 season, including Carolina, and that they are aggressively pursuing all alternatives—which presumably include an oft-rumored breakaway league. Clearly, the sale to NuRock displeases these owners and they feel that NuRock will not be the solution to frequently expressed concerns about the leagues’ organization and marketing.
The statement was issued on behalf of the Team Owners Association, a group of owners formally established in January 2008. Member clubs include existing USL-1 franchises Carolina, FC Miami, the Vancouver Whitecaps, Montreal Impact and Minnesota Thunder; a former USL-1 franchise, the Atlanta Silverbacks; one 2010 expansion franchise, the Tampa Bay Rowdies; and one prospective future franchise, St. Louis.
Notably absent are USL stalwarts Portland (which, like Vancouver, is joining the MLS in 2011), Rochester and Charleston, along with FC New York (which is slated to begin USL-1 play in 2010).
There are many questions that remain unanswered, and we hope to find out some soon. Following is the text of the statement by the Team Owners Association. Here is our post on the announcement last week that NuRock had bought the USL pyramid. Continue reading »
Carolina RailHawks, Soccer breakaway league, Carolina RailHawks, NuRock, Selby Wellman, Team Owners Association
