ThatDaveCh Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Just now, shermanator said: And Fath continues to be committed to NASL.... http://the11.ca/fc-edmonton-remains-defiant-owner-remains-confident-that-there-will-be-an-nasl-in-2017/ This is strictly his public front. He MUST have exit options and Plan B's in place. Right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dyslexic nam Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 2 minutes ago, ThatDaveCh said: This is strictly his public front. He MUST have exit options and Plan B's in place. Right? That is what I wonder. Based on what people have written here, it sounds like he has a significant financial stake ion NASL. If true, then his stubborn loyalty to it would be entirely understandable. You wouldn't abandon it, and certainly wouldn't appear open to alternative leagues, unless and until you have exhausted all other options of sustaining the league in which you have a strong vested interest. Thus I am (very) naively hopeful that the future isn't as bleak as the public noises seem to indicate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 Any plan B involving USL only has a few days to unfold apparently, and if he needs to be the last one standing to scoop up all or most of the Traffic class B share money I wouldn't count on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedinathan Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 2 hours ago, ThatDaveCh said: This is strictly his public front. He MUST have exit options and Plan B's in place. Right? He didn't take a family company to million dollar levels through stupidity. He's got to have a plan. What the plan consists of is the question. As @BringBackTheBlizzard pointed out, there's the unspoken shares that are the big elephant in the room. I HAVE to think that publically Fath and FCEd can't say much if the plan is to grab those. FiftyFiveOne was reporting that it was in the range of 3.5 Mil. Not too shabby to recoup some of the losses over the years. Does he want to do it all over again with the CPL is the serious question I think. If yes, then either an exhibition season, or USL for 2017 (assuming CPL launches in 2018). If no... the door opens for someone else to step up and bring a CPL to Edmonton. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Hammer- Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 4 hours ago, jedinathan said: He didn't take a family company to million dollar levels through stupidity. He's got to have a plan. What the plan consists of is the question. As @BringBackTheBlizzard pointed out, there's the unspoken shares that are the big elephant in the room. I HAVE to think that publically Fath and FCEd can't say much if the plan is to grab those. FiftyFiveOne was reporting that it was in the range of 3.5 Mil. Not too shabby to recoup some of the losses over the years. Does he want to do it all over again with the CPL is the serious question I think. If yes, then either an exhibition season, or USL for 2017 (assuming CPL launches in 2018). If no... the door opens for someone else to step up and bring a CPL to Edmonton. I think I mentioned it before, it will not shock me at all if Fath opts to sell the Trademark to someone else or continue as a minority partner in the CPL. Only time will tell though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDNFootballer Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 5 hours ago, jedinathan said: He didn't take a family company to million dollar levels through stupidity. He's got to have a plan. What the plan consists of is the question. As @BringBackTheBlizzard pointed out, there's the unspoken shares that are the big elephant in the room. I HAVE to think that publically Fath and FCEd can't say much if the plan is to grab those. FiftyFiveOne was reporting that it was in the range of 3.5 Mil. Not too shabby to recoup some of the losses over the years. Does he want to do it all over again with the CPL is the serious question I think. If yes, then either an exhibition season, or USL for 2017 (assuming CPL launches in 2018). If no... the door opens for someone else to step up and bring a CPL to Edmonton. If we look at the facts, there's still officially 9 NASL clubs in the league. Will some more jump to USL? Likely. All? Don't think so, there's still a core that wants to return for 2017 and interest from outside investors in the league even. They need to add some teams and get the Strikers and Cosmos sold as well or replace them. Rumors persist that interested parties are still looking to purchase those clubs. Once the USSF decision is made next week the remaining clubs will continue on for 2017 by retooling the league. Fath's not stupid, the person or entity that bought Traffic's shares as well just 2 weeks ago and there's others that won't let the NASL die and interest persists from certain moneyed individuals from what I hear in keeping it going. I think the league still returns with 7 or 8 clubs for a 2017 season. They have 4 expansion clubs lined up for 2018 so they need a bridge year to get there and have operated with as little as 7 clubs in the past, they're second year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masster Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 Total guess...would Fath purchase another team in the league to keep it going? Is he that wealthy? Is he open to losing more money? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yothat Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 Depends on what the USSF does. If the remaining the NASL team stay then Fced plays in the NASL. They jump well hopefully the Fced plays in the USL. It makes sense for the USSF to get involved more now, and seperate the USL into two leagues with the mls feeders clubs and smaller independent leagues play together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David C. Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob.notenboom Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 'a certain NASL owner' gulp. Here we go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDNFootballer Posted December 13, 2016 Share Posted December 13, 2016 On 12/9/2016 at 2:09 PM, rob.notenboom said: 'a certain NASL owner' gulp. Here we go. I think "a certain owner" could be any one of a few. USL has seemed to have acted in a predatory way, approaching not just NASL clubs but also NPSL clubs in an effort to strengthen their league's at the expense of those other league's. i wouldn't be surprised if there is legal action taken and that's their option of course. The NPSL commisioner spoke of this as well. The issue may or may not be resolved this week although a decision on pro league sanctioning in the US is supposed to be at the end of this week. Hope it is and things can move from there, name the D2 and D3 leagues and let them get on preparing for the 2017 season and hopefully both league's continue on in whatever of these mainly useless D2 and D3 designations that are designated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted December 16, 2016 Share Posted December 16, 2016 According to this blog from people with a good track record on NASL related matters, it all appears to revolve around very high exit fees and the danger of a lawsuit if the USSF downgrades the league to D3: http://fiftyfive.one/2016/12/game-chicken-steep-price-exit-fees-dictating-nasls-future/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David C. Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 ...just to add to an already neurotic month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Hammer- Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Time to put on the tinfoil hat. Anyone think that USL/MLS might be bankrolling these exit fees to sweep the NASL from the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shermanator Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 I think at this point, everyone needs to ignore the Nipun Chopra / Bob Williams tweets on the subject. They are all over the map, although that's possibly because the situation is so fluid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David C. Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 46 minutes ago, shermanator said: I think at this point, everyone needs to ignore the Nipun Chopra / Bob Williams tweets on the subject. They are all over the map, although that's possibly because the situation is so fluid. I don't think anyone is taking these tweets as gospel, nor are the twitter "reporters" claiming they are. Everyone is just trying to piece together a very weird (but important) off-season, to the best info/rumours available at the time. I don't see the harm in posting these. If anyone isn't interested, they can simply avoid the two threads, which were largely rumour-oriented to begin with. I can only assume a new thread will be created if/when tangible news were to break out. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDNFootballer Posted December 21, 2016 Share Posted December 21, 2016 Its confusing to be sure and some of Nipuns "sources" are USL ones as well so it suits them to feed him news that makes NASL look bad and keep the "bad news for NASL" narrative going as they try to kill off the current D2 league. Seems like USL won't get D2 unless by default because they don't meet the standards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toronto Ruffrider Posted December 21, 2016 Share Posted December 21, 2016 9 hours ago, -Hammer- said: Time to put on the tinfoil hat. Anyone think that USL/MLS might be bankrolling these exit fees to sweep the NASL from the board. When I was thinking about Tampa Bay and Ottawa's motives for switching leagues, that seriously crossed my mind lol. Ottawa's move in particular doesn't make any sense if there is any possibility that the Fury will end up in the CPL. Of course, there are other factors (confirmed exit date) which influence how much money TB and Ottawa will have to fork over to their former league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Complete Homer Posted December 21, 2016 Share Posted December 21, 2016 Former NASL communications director is doing an AMA. One interested tidbit is that teams don't have to pay the exit fee if they cease operations, only if they leave for another league. Changes the balances a bit if a few franchises simply call it quits Overall, sounds optimistic about NASL retaining D2 status in 2017 but doubtful beyond that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David C. Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 Didn't know where to put this (since there isn't a general USL thread that I am aware of) but here is a good article on the D2-D3 battle, largely from a USL perspective - written by Sport's Illustrated's Brian Straus: http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2017/01/05/usl-us-soccer-sanctioning-nasl-second-division https://twitter.com/BrianStraus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ted Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 ^ Great Article. Could be interesting this afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CDNFootballer Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 Sky did not fall in the end, NASL gets D2 Provisional sanctioning : U.S. Soccer Grants NASL Provisional Division II Status http://www.nasl.com/news/2017/01/06/nasl-releases-statement-on-provisional-division-ii-status Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi Oakey Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 Wow, USSF is a mess. Granting two separate leagues D2 "status. One of those leagues only have 8 teams (and completely dependent on granting said status, otherwise they would have 6). The other being an MLS reserve team league. I feel like Sunil lost his backbone. USSF's main job is to guide soccer development and they have just made it ridiculously difficult to understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex D Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 In most countries there is a natural order of things with pro/rel leagues overseen by the local FA. In the states you have multiple business entities trying to undermine each other. Pro/rel isn't feasible in the states but your think they could keep it tidier than it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted January 7, 2017 Share Posted January 7, 2017 There are already two leagues at D4 level (PDL and NPSL), so I don't think it's a huge issue or particularly difficult to understand. By all accounts on twitter the USSF were only going to sanction USL as the sole league at D2 if they agreed to accept all of the remaining NASL teams at a reduced entry fee, which USL opted not to do as they were not keen on Miami, Puerto Rico and Edmonton for various reasons, so I don't think the USSF had much option at this point in pragmatic terms. From a Canadian standpoint this entrenches the three MLS affiliate/reserves at D2 level, which players have to sign with to get domestic status in MLS for the rest of their career, so there is less of an obvious niche now for "CPL" to fill when the CSA are doing things like Generation Adidas Canada that appear to place MLS at the top of the Canadian development pathway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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