Wednesday night after reading bulletins spilling out of the Internet about the Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact leaving USL this fall and the Team Owners Association's (TOA) proposal for a breakaway league, I contacted Bob Lenarduzzi, president of the Whitecaps, for more information.
The USL-1 Vancouver Whitecaps are currently making the transition to a 2011 MLS expansion team and simultaneously managing the $485 million refurbishment of 60,000 seat BC Place Stadium.
I figured I'd catch Lenarduzzi at his desk between urgent meetings and phone calls, but no. The guy in the middle of all this commotion got back to me from a U2/Black Eyed Peas concert, so we arranged to chat on Thursday.
Below are excerpts from my interview with Lenarduzzi explaining the proposal for the new league as it stands at the moment.
LE: Is it true the Team Owners Association (TOA) are filing an application with the US Soccer Federation for a new separate league for breakaway USL-1 teams by Saturday?
Lenarduzzi: We’re hoping that it will be in by the end of the week, but yes, the team owners association are looking submit an application to the USSF for new league status. The eight involved are Miami, Tampa, Vancouver, Montreal, Carolina, Minnesota, Atlanta, and St. Louis. That’s our first step, to get the application in.
The whole reason people are afraid of this now is that Alek Papadakis did an interview yesterday on a Montreal radio station and at the time he suggested that Vancouver, Montreal would not be a part of USL next year and thanked us for our time in the league. That comment was then altered in a release that the USL put out later that day to suggest that they weren’t speaking with the TOA, but that there was still a lot of interest in Vancouver and Montreal, but that they were going ahead and looking to plan for 2010 USL.
From our perspective, that was more like what we had expected. We had never been told that we were out and we never assumed that we were in and at the same time our priority was with the TOA and we were submitting an application to the USSF.
As far as having dialogue, I’ve talked to Papadakis on a couple of occasions and on both of those occasions there was civil conversation and they have their opinion of how they would like to run things and there’s some difference of opinions on those things from the team owners’ end. Ideally, somewhere along there could be some common ground, but for the time being we’re both doing what we need to do.
LE: Does the application for a new league include information pertaining to the financing and salary cap?
Lenarduzzi: That information would be something that we wouldn’t speak of publicly, but it would be included in the submission, yes.
LE: Has the TOA been in discussion with MLS on this matter?
Lenarduzzi: MLS has been involved in the dialogue, but from their perspective they’re not aligning themselves with any particular group at this point. I think they would be hopeful that there are other levels beneath MLS that can be on the professional soccer pyramid in this country, but they haven’t been involved in any of the detailed discussion.
LE: Is it true that the Vancouver ownership group is exploring the possibility of putting another team besides the Whitecaps in another market for 2011?
Lenarduzzi: We’ve indicated that when we have our MLS team we're exploring the opportunity of having another team at the next level, so yes, that is true, but there’s nothing definitive on that.
LE: At the next level, meaning?
Lenarduzzi: At the level beneath MLS, which would be the new league in its proposed form or in the USL if there is no other alternative.
LE: There was an interview with Carolina Railhawks' president Brian Wellman in the Triangle Offense that indicated the proposed league might use the FIFA schedule and run through the winter.
Lenarduzzi: It could be something that has been discussed, but it’s a detail that I can’t comment on at this point.
LE: You have no players' union. How would the proposed league deal with this considering that MLS and the US national team each have a players’ union?
Lenarduzzi: That’s something that hasn't been developed, but first and foremost we need to make sure that there is a league and then all of those things would likely follow suit.
LE: Congratulations on getting the financing for the retractable roof at BC Place. Did that financing cover the second interior retractable roof as well?
Lenarduzzi: Yes, it did.
Read more about the 2011 MLS expansion team Vancouver Whitecaps on US Soccer Players.
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