USL D3: Could Promotion & Relegation Come To American Soccer?


On January 25th, 2018, South Georgia Tormenta FC was announced as the founding member of the United Soccer League Division III. Despite the club’s young age, they were seen by the higher officials of the league as the perfect first member. Darin Van Tassell, Owner, and CEO of the club was quoted saying, “Elevating the club to the proven model of the USL professional ranks allows us to increase the impact our organization can have in the local community, region, and country.”

But within this exciting announcement, was an even more important comment. One that if true, could change American soccer forever.

Image result for tormenta fc usl d3

While being asked by the Philadelphia Inquirer about promotion and relegation between the two leagues, Jake Edwards, President of the USL said, “I think it would be very interesting to look at pro-rel between those two divisions, we certainly could do it now and I think there’s an interest to do it among our board,” later saying, “I think that’s going to take a little bit of time. We’ll get that done, and then I think as we’re doing that, we’re going to look at integration opportunities. Then, beyond that, if the structure is in place and lends itself for [promotion and relegation], then it’s absolutely a possibility.”

These words are monumental! Promotion and relegation within the American soccer pyramid is the most controversial and debated topic amongst fans. Ask any supporter of the sport what they think and you’ll get a variety of opinions; some love it, some hate it, and there are plenty of opinions in between. So seeing the President of the USL acknowledge and admit that a possibility is there is a huge deal!

So let’s look at USL D3: is there a need for promotion/relegation? How could this new league lead to it? What factors would the leagues need to address? And could we ever see a day where MLS is involved?

What is USL D3?

Created by the United Soccer League, the second division on the American soccer pyramid, this new league is intended to “focus on launching new third-division clubs in markets that possess strong local ownership groups, populations with broad-based diversity, a vibrant millennial and strong family base, established corporate support, and stadiums to properly showcase the sport for fans, partners, and the public,” according to the league’s website.

Set to play in 2019, USL D3 will not be alone as a third division in the United States. The National Independent Soccer Association (NISA), is set to take play in 2018 or 2019, whose eventual plan is to be a feeder with the North American Soccer League (NASL.) But with the future of the NASL in serious question, no one is sure what’s happening anymore. So for now, I will only evaluate USL D3 for the time being.

Despite the league only recently announcing its first member, we can determine who the other members may be based on two things:

From the USL D3 Website: “The USL will target U.S. communities ranging in population from 150,000 to one million, representing more than 75 million people without access to a local professional soccer club.”
The Vice President of USL, Steven Short, has already toured around a large chunk of the country, visiting 23 different cities, with some notable featuring Des Moines, Iowa, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Lexington, Kentucky.
This is pure speculation, but with USL already being at 33 clubs, I would imagine that the league will eventually push any expansion candidate toward USL D3. With five more potential clubs set to join by 2021, I believe USL is reaching its carrying capacity.

I only say this because implementing promotion and relegation with a league of nearly 40 teams is not simple. I can’t imagine that adding any more would be workable if the league was ever serious about these plans.

Now that we’ve looked at USL D3 and the plans for the league itself, we can look at the bigger picture. Let’s start with viewing promotion and relegation from the lenses of both USL leagues.

Lower League Promotion and Relegation

When reviewing the same Jake Edwards interview I mentioned earlier, there was another interesting excerpt that has to be noticed, “We are going to experiment with precursors, such as maybe some sort of inter-league competition, an inter-league cup. We’re going to look at options like that to see if that works.”

An inter-league “USL Cup” will 100% be the first step that needs to happen before any bigger idea can take place. A cup between the two leagues would be the first of its kind in America, it would also be a great test for the USL D3 clubs; can they even compete with clubs in a higher league? Is it sustainable to have a club from South Georgia, for example, to have to travel far distances?

These are important questions that need to be answered. But with USL D3’s need for “[The] Primary owner with a net worth in excess of $10 million and 35% or greater share of the potential franchise,” it makes sense to imagine the clubs having a fair budget. But as many followers of the lower leagues of American soccer know, it is not a financially stable industry that reels in profit. Am I sure they’ll be a plan to keep teams within regions of the countries like the US Open Cup? 100%. But should we keep this in mind when seeing if promotion & relegation could work? Without a doubt.

Before going any further, I’d like to bring up another league which is also a part of the USL ladder and one that could get involved in this promotion and relegation puzzle: The Premier Development League.

The Premier Development League

Considered the “unofficial” fourth division within the United States, the PDL is where South Georgia Tormenta FC was playing in. Already featuring 78 teams split into four conferences, one should not be surprised if many of the new USL D3 clubs end up coming from this league. Remember how I mentioned Des Moines as a candidate for expansion before? Well, the Des Moines Menace, a club that plays in the PDL, is more than likely going to make up one of the clubs that play within this new league in 2019.

After looking at many leagues, clubs, etc., we need to now look at what factors will need to thought of before we can even come close to having an open soccer pyramid.

The Time Frame?

There is one point I want to emphasize: whether you agree with promotion and relegation as a thing that should happen, it will not be happening for the foreseeable future.

Despite my moderate research, I could not find a specific number of clubs USL D3 is looking to begin with come 2019; so in this hypothetical scenario, let’s assume that the new league starts off with 10.

Looking at it from a numbers perspective, the USL has gone from 12 clubs in 2011, to 33 getting ready to play in this upcoming season. That is an increase of around three clubs per season. Although this isn’t the greatest method to predict growth, let’s assume that USL D3 increases by three clubs every season. With that growth, the league would hit 25 clubs by the 2024 season. Assuming that an inter-league cup has already been established and that it has worked for all the clubs involved, then I believe the groundworks for an open system could begin.

Aside from having an appropriate number of clubs, there is also one massive issue we need to account for: geography.

Image result for usl d3

Regions?

The United States is huge! With it being the third largest country by area, it is difficult for teams in any sport to travel across the country. So when we put that factor together with a group of lower league soccer clubs that don’t possess even a fraction of the budgets that teams in MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, or even MLS have, it can create a problem.

For example, to get from Southampton to Newcastle takes roughly 5 hours by car, which is not a short distance by any means, but if you wanted to go from my home in New York to Seattle, it would take about 42 hours.

The USL itself already features a two-conference system and with plans to add a Central conference next season, USL is setting itself up to allow for clubs to travel less. If we were to add promotion & relegation the mix, this would require the conferences to realign themselves every season. But this is the most logical way to protect clubs that get promoted from horrific travel costs, assuming a system is ever set in place.

While talks of any promotion and relegation are exciting, we need to address the elephant in the room: Major League Soccer.

MLS Inclusion?

The rise of MLS has been incredible, a league that has faced uncertainty throughout its entire history is at the point where the supporters can breathe, not having to worry about whether the league will survive to next season. But despite that the league’s stability cannot be argued anymore, its reputation is still very much in the air.

The main criticism of Major League Soccer is its “authenticity;” from some, you get complaints of a league that is nothing more than a group of corporate franchises, rather than true soccer clubs. That MLS is a novelty, with playoffs and no relegation, it means that owners have no incentive to improve because they’ll never have to face any true consequences; if the fans dip, you can pick up your team and move them across the country.

To answer if MLS will ever adopt a system of promotion and relegation, the honest answer is probably never. When the league declined a four billion dollar offer from the media company, MP & Silva, which would require the league to adopt a system that allows for clubs to get promoted, MLS held its stance and declined. The owner of MP & Silva, Riccardo Silva, is also one of the co-owners of Miami FC, a club that was formerly part of the NASL and is now in the NPSL for the upcoming season. If MLS was willing to deny that much money, you know they believe in their system.

While many could blame Major League Soccer for this, there are many valid reasons for not wanting it. It can be confusing to explain to new fans that your favorite club could go to a lesser league over one poor season and quite frankly, MLS has no incentive to change its model.

I’m not implying that either system is better than the other, but as I already mentioned, the league has no real reason to shake up a system that has worked to this point. While I believe it is robbing us of some fantastic stories, I don’t think it’s ridiculous to imagine why they don’t want this change.



Final Thoughts.

Promotion and relegation in America is one of the things you never talk about, like money or politics. Okay, maybe it’s not that big, but it is very controversial. A club starting from nothing to working up to the top is a beautiful thing to see. It’s something that has defined the game and turned it into the biggest in the world.

We’ve seen once giants fall, clubs be re-born and fight back up, or even the lucky few who get to the top and show the world that despite them being thought as small, they have passion and heart. Promotion and relegation can create a bond with a club that is almost marriage like, you’ll always be there.

With the USL looking at promotion and relegation as a system the league could look to implement with USL D3, it gives fans of the sport something to rejoice about. Who knows, maybe we will see a day where a club from a “minor” city can make its way to the top.

Maybe if we’re lucky, us Americans can get our own stories to share. But we can only take what we have; USL is looking to change the system. While the little guys may never get a chance to prove it at the top level because they aren’t seen as “good enough” for MLS, to get a chance, is perhaps the most American thing one could ask for.

https://theimpactnews.com/columnists/tales-of-an-american-redhead/2018/02/03/usld3/

I dont get what will happen in the foreseeable future that hasnt already happened .The time is NOW .

http://en.f1i.com/news/292135-brawn-suggest-league-table-races-rank-f1-venues.html

Wow.

To answer if MLS will ever adopt a system of promotion and relegation, the honest answer is probably never. When the league declined a four billion dollar offer from the media company, MP & Silva, which would require the league to adopt a system that allows for clubs to get promoted, MLS held its stance and declined. The owner of MP & Silva, Riccardo Silva, is also one of the co-owners of Miami FC, a club that was formerly part of the NASL and is now in the NPSL for the upcoming season. If MLS was willing to deny that much money, you know they believe in their system.

They want to do the same with Super Rugby as Italy is constantly playing shit. Like Wellington basically.

Another an league.

Video clip with FIFA president

"The league system...the closed league... (is a) challenge that has to be tackled."

- FIFA President Gianni Infantino


http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=22437590

The NASL announced that it has canceled the 2018 Season after failing to receive a preliminary injunction preventing the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) from revoking the NASL’s Division II status.

http://www.nasl.com/news/2018/02/27/north-american-soccer-league-announces-cancellation-of-2018-season

No excuse not to have Pro Rel now. They have used this league as a cop out.

MLS stands alone as a closed shop in the world of football. Meet the two men trying to change that

The worst team in MLS last year were LA Galaxy, winning just eight of their 34 games, and their reward for that failure is to blithely start the new season on Monday as if nothing happened as they host Portland Timbers. Miami FC were the best team in NASL, Spring and Fall Champions, and their reward is not promotion but punishment: NASL has been de-sanctioned by the US Soccer Federation (USSF) and they have nowhere to play all year.

This is the unfair reality of the game in the United States, where the only way into the top flight is with a $150m buy-in. Every other footballing country, Australia aside, provides a ladder to the top, and even the A League is going to bring one in.

Standing alone against the world, this is a footballing form of American exceptionalism. One that raises questions about the universality of the game, the muscle of Fifa, the survival of domestic league pyramids, and suggesting an explanation to why the world’s biggest economy still underachieves, and will not be sending a team to this year’s men’s World Cup.

Because this closed-shop arrangement, and the cosy protection the USSF gives to MLS, is under threat like never before. Two football club owners, faces pressed up against the window of MLS, are bringing a new legal challenge this spring. Hoping to force Fifa to finally impose promotion and relegation on the USSF, bringing American soccer into line, more than 20 years late.

Riccardo Silva is an Italian investor and founder of MP & Silva, a sports media agency he set up with Andrea Radrizzani, who now owns Leeds United. Silva set up Miami FC and is distraught that, after NASL’s desanctioning, they have nowhere to play this year. But his financial stake in this is potentially even bigger than that: last year MP & Silva offered $4bn for the next 10 years of MLS rights, quadrupling the current value of the current deal, as long as they introduced promotion and relegation. They said no.

But Silva still wants to find a way to shake up football in the US, to make it fairer, more open, and more marketable than it is right now. “Broadcasters always say they don’t believe MLS is real soccer because it’s a closed league,” he explains to The Independent from his central London office this week “There isn’t really a competition. It’s not perceived as real football, real soccer, it’s something a bit artificial. Where there is no sporting merit, no competitiveness. This is what everybody thinks.”

Dennis Crowley is the founder of location app FourSquare and a huge soccer fan, who has set up his own semi-professional team, Kingston Stockade FC, in upstate New York. Silva and Crowley met up last year and shared their frustrations about the state of the football in the US, the lack of a fair pyramid and the damage that does to the standard of the national team.

riccardo-silva.jpg
Riccardo Silva, right, is an Italian investor (Getty Images)

Those were the problems that drove Crowley to create Kingston Stockade in the first place, back in 2015. “Part of the thinking was, what can we do to make soccer better in the US?” Crowley tells The Independent over the phone from San Francisco. “Manifested in another selfish goal: what has to happen for me, at 40 years old, to see the US win a World Cup in my lifetime? Is that possible? It’s very easy to sit around and complain: what things can I do, as a fan, to inch us a little bit closer to that? And we hit on this idea: let’s make a club, and help other people make clubs.”

Kingston Stockade play in the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL), effectively the fourth tier in the US. But no matter what they achieve, the closed system means they will never go anywhere. Nothing will be ever be enough to reach the top flight, the Concacaf Champions League or the Club World Cup. Football is meant to be meritocratic, except in the US.

“Every other part of American culture is very much driven by the entrepreneurial spirit,” explains Crowley. “You make something great, you try to win against your competitors, and then you move to face off against bigger and better competitors. My other job is I work at a tech company. It started as a tiny little tech company, and over 10 years we built it into a big tech company. And this idea that you can’t do that in soccer, it feels fundamentally broken.”

Nowhere is the weakness of the system clearer than in the failure of the national team to reach this year’s World Cup, for the first time since 1986. The USA, remember, finished fifth in a 10-game six-team league, behind Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras. It all ended in Trinidad last October as the USA disastrously lost 2-1, shocking soccer fans across the country.

This underperformance is what inspired Crowley and Silva, who ascribe the side’s struggle to the lack of a proper football system in the US: “A country of 300 million people, where soccer exists for a long time, and is very followed, should be constantly among the top 10, if not the top five in the world. It is the result of the disrespect of the rule of competition. Since it is not a competitive system, it’s an anticompetitive system.”

dennis-crowley.jpg
Dennis Crowley is the founder of location app FourSquare (Getty)

But how do you get USSF to change? The first hope of the promotion-relegation lobby was Eric Wynalda, who ran to replace Sunil Gulati as USSF president, advocating radical change, including ‘pro-rel’, to shake up soccer in the US. But in last month’s election he failed and was beaten by Carlos Cordeiro, vice-president under Gulati, an establishment candidate but not quite as pro-MLS as Kathy Carter. But Cordeiro, in words that have encouraged reformers, has pledged to end the ‘conflict of interest’ at the heart of American soccer.

What exactly does he mean by that? Reformers see the overly-cosy relationship between USSF, MLS and Soccer United Marketing (SUM), who sell MLS TV rights, as the heart of the problems in the American game. USSF protects MLS’ Division 1 status but sets harsh professional league standards for its competitors. They have de-sanctioned NASL for 2018, leaving Silva’s Miami FC and the popular New York Cosmos with nowhere to play this year. NASL tried to reverse that decision in a court case in New York but they lost their appeal this week. So Miami FC’s second team will play in the NPSL this year while their first team, now managed by Paul Dalglish, have to search for another competition to sign up for.

USSF, it is increasingly clear, are in no mood to compromise or to help any team or league outside of their protected bubble. So Silva and Crowley are taking a different legal approach. Article 9 of Fifa’s statutory regulations enshrines promotion and relegation, ordering that a club’s “entitlement to take part in a domestic league championship shall depend principally on sporting merit”. Of course this is not the case in the US, where the only way into MLS is with a cheque. Silva and Crowley, or rather, Miami FC and Kingston Stockade FC, are bringing a case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), appealing for arbitration, calling on Fifa to finally impose its own rules on the US and bring them into line with the rest of the world.

“Ultimately, you can’t ask the USSF politely to do this,” Crowley says. “They’re not interested. What we’re trying to do with the CAS filing is to say ‘listen, USSF has to play by Fifa’s rules.’ People have been trying to do this for years, and USSF has not been forced to respond. The thinking is that the CAS filing forces the issue, forces them to articulate their position, and hopefully forces them to make some changes here. The USSF has to acknowledge that this is part of Fifa’s rules.”

fifa-logo.jpg
Is Fifa going to allow the closed shop that is the MLS continue in its current form? (Getty)

The question for Fifa is whether they have the stomach to forcibly impose this on the US. The fact that they have not done so yet, with MLS about to start its 23rd season, is revealing enough. But there is a bigger issue at stake here even than whether the US will ever have its own pro-rel pyramid, whether Miami FC will ever get to play top flight football, or reach the Champions League, and how an open system, rather than a closed one, would improve the US men’s national team.

And that is whether football has to be organised the same way in every country or not. Football’s universality has always been its strength. But if Fifa is going to ignore such a huge exception – and even to defend its right to do so – then which other laws and tenets of the game are negotiable? “There cannot be any discrimination between countries,” Silva insists. “If a rule is valid in Europe, it should be valid in the US. Otherwise, let’s start playing in the US with 20 players. With bigger goals. With helmets. With hands. If FIFA have rules, they should be valid everywhere. Without discrimination of countries.”

That might sound dystopian but there is a more immediate threat to the structure of football if Fifa do not act. Which is that if Fifa allow the USSF to run their own closed shop, ignoring the sporting merit criteria, then how can Fifa stop a lucrative trans-national super league from setting up?

“If a closed league, where teams pay to be promoted, is formally accepted, then I think it would be the end of football in Europe,” warns Silva. “Basically only 20 teams in Europe will survive, and hundreds would die because the others would form a super league. And football as it is, as an inclusive, open system, will die. It will only be a little private club of the 20 richest teams in Europe. And hundreds of teams, with their tradition, with their importance to the community, will disappear. If there isn’t an open system, football will disappear.”

With additional reporting by Hugo Greenhalgh


http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/major-league-soccer-promotion-relegation-usa-mls-la-galaxy-close-shop-a8237506.html

Mediocrity leagues are a blight.

They turned down $4B over 10 years?? What's their current deal worth? 

ISL 2017/18: Premier League director explains how the Indian Super League can be improved




Richard Masters, the managing director of the English Premier League, believes that the franchise system in the Indian Super League (ISL) isn't the way forward for Indian football. Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, Richard explained how the ISL can take a few notes from the Premier League. Unlike the EPL where every club owns a share in the league, the ISL follows a franchise system where the teams do not own a share in the league.

"They're franchise holders, aren't they? All I can say is in the Premier League, everything happens centrally, each club get's a 20th of the benefit (of entire league). Whereas if you're a franchise owner, you hold a contract for a certain period of time...it's different."

"Eventually maybe, they have to take it step by step. If I owned a football club, I'd want a big say in how the league is run," he added.

Richard, who has been involved with English football since 2001, believes that certain tweaks to the ISL must be mandatory and suggested that the issues with Indian football cannot be solved in the short run but that it will take a considerable period of time before any tangible change can be visible.

"It's going to take a long time to build a football cultural heritage in Indian cities. I know some of them have it. I think the issue with Indian football is structural. The ISL must be put into a pyramid and have a promotion-relegation system. If you take promotion-relegation out of the EPL, you'd make half the matches worthless," he stated.

Richard alluded to the fact that a relegation system adds more interest and drama to a football league, suggesting that there is a lot more at stake which automatically garners interest.

"By contrast to the ISL, nearly every match in the EPL counts for something. Over half the clubs are looking down their shoulder, worried about relegation. That sort of thing makes the difference, something hanging on the matches, it makes people want to watch it," he said.

https://m.sportskeeda.com/football/isl-2017-18-premier-league-director-explains-why-the-indian-super-league-is-flawed

Indian clubs face ban if single football league not started from 2019-20: Fifa-backed report

.

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) may have to accelerate its efforts to merge the two football leagues in the country, the Indian Super league (ISL) and the I-League, from 2019-20, with a report by a two-member committee appointed by Fifa and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) recommending this.

AIFF general secretary Kushal Das recently said that AIFF is in no rush to merge the leagues, but the report is likely to change that.

The 17-page report, authored by Alex Philips of AFC (he was seconded from UEFA) and Nic Coward, a Fifa consultant, also recommends an expanded football league with 16 teams no later than 2022-23, with the bottom two teams being relegated.

The report also calls for a review of some of the arrangements currently in place, such as ISL teams having a 10-year immunity from relegation. It also suggests reviewing parts of the 15-year agreement between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and IMG-Reliance signed in 2010.

On part of IMG-R, the agreement is now executed by Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) where Star Sports has a stake. Hindustan Times has seen a copy of the report.

If the second new team isn’t the I-League runner-up, it can be chosen through open tender, says the plan titled ‘The Sustainable Development of Top-level Indian Club Football --- A Road Map.’

By adding two teams each season , the top tier should have 16 teams by 2021-22 or by 2022-23 (if the plan is delayed). Once that happens, it is recommended that the bottom two be relegated every year. This is at odds with the ISL agreement which says its franchises are guaranteed 10 years from 2014 in the closed (no relegation) league.

The recommendations come with a caveat. Should India not be able to implement a unified league structure from 2019-20, the report proposes an Asian ban on Indian clubs.

From 2019-20, the plan recommends that the top tier of the league has 12 teams, including 10 ISL teams, with at least one of the added teams being the I-League champions of 2018-19. By accommodating the I-League champions the plan seeks to establish a clear promotion link. The report also recommends growing ISL but “on an open and clear basis.”

“It is understood that this is earlier than 10 years, but we do not consider that this should be material for the original ISL teams or even the later additions,” the authors say.

As a trade-off, the plan says ISL teams should stop paying franchise fees once relegation begins. Teams pay between Rs 12-18 crore per season as fee for playing in the ISL. Teams entering the unified league too should pay an as-yet undecided fee, says the plan.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/football/fifa-backed-report-for-one-india-football-league-club-ban-if-not-done-from-2019-20/story-Y7Ig1U6xURS4QXOPfHtW8N.html

Use the Grand Final as a warm up for the main action on Sunday
Below, an ununique league

Championship Survival Sunday (and Promotion)
 It would be hard to make this up

Of the 9 teams in the League with something to play for, 8 are up against each other on Sunday

Synchronised kick-offs 9:30 pm Eastern






Reading & Birmingham are playing the 2 teams fighting for the last automatic promotion spot, who will be going flat out to win

Barnsley & Burton are playing the 2 teams fighting for the last promotion play-off spot, Preston will have to throw everything at Burton, but Derby can settle for a draw with Barnsley.  Burton have a better away record than at home.

Bolton are at home to Forest, one of the worst away teams in the League 

Mooy and Huddersfield in deep shit

Away to Chelsea then  Arsenal at home to play

Swansea have Stoke at home.

• The Terriers have failed to score in 20 Premier League matches this season and could yet equal the record of 22, set by Derby County in 2007-08.

• Huddersfield won 3-0 at Crystal Palace on the opening day of the season but have since lost all seven league matches against London opposition by an aggregate score of 2-22.

Illegal to have that scenario here.

“I-League has been the country’s top league since a long time whereas ISL started just five years ago. AFC regulations recommend that the country’s top league should be given the playoff spot. So, suddenly I-League becomes the second league and ISL the top league. Till last month, I-League was the top league. How can decisions be taken so arbitrarily and for what reason?,” questioned Bajaj. He also stressed that the Master Rights Agreement, that the AIFF has signed with it’s marketing partners, goes against FIFA rules. “The FIFA constitution states that the top league of a country needs to have relegation and promotion. The current proposal by AIFF has no space for relegation and promotion. Moreover, the top league of a country cannot be owned by a private entity. We will be challenging the MRA and will prove that it is illegal.”


https://m.timesofindia.com/sports/football/i-league/six-i-league-clubs-to-approach-fifa-afc/articleshow/70271054.cms

“Football is so strong because of the multi-sport club structure that reaches every corner of Europe, which focuses on local clubs playing in leagues that have relegation, promotion and the champions league pathway.  The strongest clubs rise and the weaker clubs fall.

We believe that by creating the ECL, which is actually the Champions League of European Cricket, we will ignite clubs all over Europe to play cricket in local leagues that they are inspired to win so that they can reach the ECL. Any club playing in European domestic leagues now can win their domestic league which then gets them invited to the ECL........

“Real Madrid, Paris St Germain and FC Bayern and TUS Prien are ALL multi-sport clubs, that play football, handball, basketball, judo and many more sports. Why not cricket!?,” signs off Weston.

For now he and his team have made that first big leap by laying that strong foundation with the launch of the European Cricket League. The masses are uniting. The class will come with perseverance.”

https://www.insidesport.co/football-bosses-join-hands-for-champions-league-of-european-cricket/

Would love to see some new HAL clubs be multi sport ones - would make a team called "Sporting" or "Athletic" logical.

They're profitiable though.  Whilst top clubs are too big to ever be relegated due to poor form they would love a closed system which is essentially what those European Super League ideas are.  It's essentially a guranteed revenue stream which is what this is all about.   

Victory tried to buy an NBL franchise and a Super Rugby franchise. the NBL franchise was rejected as the FFA wouldn't let them use the name. that will be changing now with the independant HAL. Maybe the club will look at it again if this new "South East Phoenix" fails

I dont care about how many zeros some fat pricks makes? I want football and the best possible football. 

Kestelman sees AL as a rival. Wants to pair with NRL & AFL.

CCM should approach NRL. But it’s tough with NRL owning ips. 

AC Milan was originally founded as a cricket team...

“Belgian Jupiler Pro League – The most convoluted league system in the world”

https://punditfeed.com/long-reads/belgian-jupiler-pro-league/

pur the kettle on

I League-ISL issue: AIFF puts FIFA, AFC recommendations on back burner

“The All India Football Federation on Friday said that some of the recommendations made by the world governing body Fifa and its Asian counterpart AFC are ‘not feasible to implement as of now’ and will need time to work on them.

The AIFF’s defence came after Fifa on Thursday sought an update from the national federation on the current football scenario in the country after six I-League clubs made a representation to the world body.”

https://scroll.in/field/931931/indian-football-aiff-says-fifa-afc-recommendations-will-take-a-while-to-be-implemented

“Fifa official seeks update on Indian football league structure; AIFF issues response”

Fifa has written to All India Football Federation General Secretary Kushal Das asking for an update on the current status of the league structure in India.

Joyce Cook, Fifa’s Chief Member Association Officer wrote to the AIFF after the world body became aware of the current situation in Indian football and the AIFF’s ongoing discussions with the I-League clubs, the letter said.

https://scroll.in/field/931803/full-text-fifa-official-seeks-update-on-indian-football-league-structure-aiff-issues-response

#unique is universal