UPDATE: USL Pro article featuring a few quotes from league president
The United Soccer Leagues has made it easier than ever for its clubs to pick leagues in 2011.
Wednesday's announcement that the league will form just one professional league, USL Pro, means that the only other option (for men's soccer) is for clubs to join or remain in the PDL, a summer league featuring mainly college players.
While the Kitsap Pumas have dreams of playing in a fully professional league, the announcement of USL Pro is being met with healthy skepticism by Pumas owner Robin Waite.
"The article is very thin," says Waite of the press release from the league. "We will have to wait and see how it plays out."
UPDATE: The Kitsap Sun reports that the Pumas are close to announcing that they will field a team in the PASL indoor soccer league this winter.
I asked Waite to construct a formula in which the Pumas would be interested in helping build a USL Pro Western Conference. He talked about the number of clubs needed to make him feel it could work.
"I think ten (clubs) would be the ideal number, eight the minimum. Victoria, Tacoma/Olympia, Spokane, Portland/Eugene and us would be a good start. Don't know what the (Yakima) Reds will do as they are moving to Snohomish."
In the end the Pumas might be caught between attendance that has not grown as quickly as hoped, and missing a chance to join the pros in 2011 as the restructuring of the league pushes westward.
The USL itself has not gone into further detail on the new Pro/PDL split of leagues. One wonders if the clubs currently playing in the PDL, but paying their players, (Kitsap, Hollywood, Vancouver in the west) will be told that to continue using paid players they will need to join USL Pro. In other words, will the USL insist as a part of this major overhaul that clubs must fall under one or the other leagues, and the deciding factor is whether the players are paid or amateurs?
If the USL pulls such a powerplay, it is unclear how the PDL clubs who are hesitant to join the USL Pro will respond.
Waite remains noncommittal at this stage.
"We have concerns," he says of the USL Pro, "due to the distances in the Western regions and the lack of teams."
Comments
Waite says it all. There is very little information on the new formation of the USL/Pro league and again they fail to create a true 2nd Division. This will only further the weakness in our professional football in this country.
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