While those reports made clear that any settlement was contingent upon the approval of US Soccer, it appears now that US Soccer and FIFA rules would have prohibited any exhibition games involving non-league magicJack playing WPS teams.

Never a deal

Atlanta Beat owner Fitz Johnson said last week that a “settlement” was never approved.”It was a confidential deal that had some hurdles to be achieved prior to it being approved, and it wasn’t, so the deal was off. It was never approved. If the deal was approved, then the deal would have been settled. There were several folks that needed to put their stamp of approval on it—the court, Mr. Borislow, the owners—everybody would have to agree.”

Borislow disagrees and said last week, “I have a deal with the WPS and I expect for both sides to follow through on it.”

Borislow’s expectations aside, Halstead said there were never anything more than discussions about possible exhibition games.

“Over the past several months, there have been a lot of prospective and potential arrangements and discussions and settlements and deals between the League and magicJack,” said Halstead. “When I read them in the news, some of them were accurate from what we were hearing at the Board level and some of them were very inaccurate. A deal where there’s exhibition games against magicJack, I don’t know much about a deal like that.”

Halstead detailed a number of considerations—among them game location, insurance and travel cost considerations, concession splits, marketing costs—that would make exhibition games not cost-effective or feasible.

“I was never faced with those questions,” Halstead said, “because there’s nothing like that that ever materialized from a standpoint of something we needed to analyze as a real settlement option.”

League says US Soccer does not approve

In a request for a status conference filed last week in a Florida circuit court, the league argued, “The record clearly establishes that the proposed settlement agreement was contingent upon approval by USSF.” The request continues, “USSF has refused to approve the proposed settlement agreement, and, therefore, there is no enforceable settlement agreement.”

“It was not contingent on the USSF,” countered Borislow, “but we did ask them about having more than four [women's national team] players on our team without being in a USSF league.”

“They said you can use more than four if we were an unaffiliated member of the WPS or played on one of the other three other leagues. There were no impediments. More important than that, four or less WNT players and we didn’t need permission of the USSF at all for anything.”

“I was going to have a team anyway you looked at it,” Borislow continued. “This deal was never contingent on the USSF. The transcripts don’t lie. We will effectively also attest under oath in a filing today that there was no contingency.”

Reports suggest, however, that the problem may not be US Soccer rules but FIFA rules which state “teams unaffiliated with any FIFA sanctioned league cannot play against other FIFA members.”

Precedence?

If Borislow can prove that a deal was in fact in place that involved a commitment to play exhibition games against magicJack, might there be a way around US Soccer and FIFA statutes?

There is recent precedence for a non-league affiliated team playing against FIFA affiliated teams. In December, the LA Vikings played both the the US and Canadian women’s national teams.

Team president and coach Robert Kleinberger describes the team as an “offseason professional team and not affiliated with any league.”

So, how could a team “not affiliated with any league” play national teams if it is accurate that unaffiliated magicJack cannot play WPS teams?

As Kleinberger explains, the description of the LA Vikings being non-affiliated is not strictly true. “Viking (Athletic Club) has a relationship with U.S. Club Soccer, and WPSL has an affiliation with USSF. We were able to register the LA Vikings through WPSL with USSF. The players had to sign USSF paperwork. Free agents who were not registered had to be assigned to teams. If you were already under contract, they become courtesy loan players.” While the Vikings may be “not affiliated with any league” in the offseason, they are nevertheless a WPSL team during the regular season.

WPSL—or the Women’s Premier Soccer League, the second division of the US women’s soccer pyramid and the largest national women’s soccer league in the world—has expressed its support of WPS. Said WPSL president Jerry Zanelli, “The WPSL is committed to doing everything possible to help the WPS make it through these trying times.”

Already the home of former WPS club Chicago Red Stars, Zanelli has extended an offer to all five remaining WPS teams to join an “elite division” in WPSL for the 2012 season. “We want to give them a landing place for a year, but we also have [existing] teams that want to play in that elite league…We’re only thinking about 2012 right now. I think they have to play somewhere, in an established league, and if they don’t, it will be hard to pick things back up again.”

So, could magicJack, which has contacted WPSL about fielding a team, gain sanctioning through that league?

According to Zanelli, “If the other five accept, we won’t take magicJack.”

Before I get too far into discussing the decision of WPS to cancel the 2012 season, let me say that my initial reaction when the news first broke was that I was simply gutted. Gutted for every fantastic person I’ve met covering the Independence and women’s soccer in general. The players especially, but also the front office staff, the volunteers, and everyone who makes WPS possible. There are far more fantastic people than most people know behind this league and I’ve really enjoyed interacting with every single one. I hope to see you all in 2013, if not sooner.

The official statement from the league says, “[WPS] Board of Governors has voted to suspend the 2012 season to permit the League to focus on the resolution of certain pending legal issues and  the challenges that now face the League as a result of its ongoing dispute with a former owner.” For those not aware, the former owner mentioned here is none other than Philadelphia’s own Dan Borislow, owner of the now expelled South Florida franchise (I’m sure you either know the name or can figure it out without any free advertising from the PSP).

A Brief History of a True Madafaka

Borislow took over the ownerless Washington Freedom franchise ahead of the 2011 season and abruptly moved the team to Florida. In his first match in Florida, he broke a number of WPS rules including: failure to display sponsor sign boards, failure to upload video to the league’s site for scouting purposes, lack of an ambulance and EMS staff at the game, failure of the coaching staff to wear required Puma attire, an undersized field (league minimum is 66 yards wide), lack of seating for a minimum of 5,000 fans, lack of press accommodations, lack of player availability to the media, and a past-due balance of $53,166.67 owed to the league. You know, nothing major.

Meanwhile, he was friendly and cordial and willing to work with the league to correct his past mistakes. In May, he emailed WPS President Anne-Marie Eileraas after losing an appeal on a touchline suspension, “I expected nothing less from a bunch of blithering idiots. This will be judged by a higher authority one day. Your boss, Dan.” You can read more of his friendly communications with the league here, including a number of mentions of how he would sue the league out of business.

Oh, and he basically singlehandedly lost the league’s biggest sponsor, Puma, after a single contentious meeting.

He finally did make good on his promise to bring the league to court after his team was expelled in October. After the league lost a few key proceedings early on, the two sides seemed to reach a settlement earlier this month. The settlement allowed the Florida franchise to continue to play soccer in the shape of a series of exhibition matches against WPS teams, but the team would not actually participate in the league.

With last season’s Florida team stacked with USWNT players including Abby Wambach, Hope Solo, Christie Rampone, and Shannon Boxx—and those same players still not employed with other WPS squads—it was interesting to see who would sign with the renegade Florida team. Wambach stood by Borislow and said she was willing to play for him again as recently as last week in an interview with Julie Foudy.

On Sunday, ahead of the league’s announcement, Big Soccer’s Dan Loney had some choice words for any player looking to play in Florida, calling out players for choosing to play for Borislow. As of this writing, there’s been no word from Wambach or any of the other former Florida players since the league’s announcement.

As for other players from across the league, there isn’t a lot being said, yet. Twitter was surprisingly quiet in terms of real substance, with a few players such as Nikki Krzysik and Alex Morgan cryptically posting about being saddened by the news. The Independence’s colorful striker Tasha Kai was less shy, tweeting, “Dear Dan Borislow. U are the true definition of a MADAFAKA. U can shove that magic jack up ur fat ass. U miserable bastard. Asshole.” Check her further tweets for some more quality barbs at Borislow.

Sky Blue defender Carrie Drew also had some choice words for Borislow, tweeting, “Dan Borislow you are a life ruiner. Leave soccer alone and go invent something else useless…” Any search of the hashtag WPS will lead to plenty of Borislow bashing by upset fans of the league.

To blame the cancellation of the season simply on the legal proceedings seems short sided. Borislow himself claimed today that he thought the lawyer for WPS was working pro bono. What is clear is that the current group of WPS owners have no interest in working any further with Borislow or his team and, if the choice was to play another season with the man or not play at all, they choose not to play at all.

But even outside of the Borislow fiasco, there is more that has to be examined about WPS.

Is the loss of the 2012 season the end?

Before US Soccer sanctioned WPS with only five teams in December, former Chicago Red Stars owner Peter Wilt wrote an interesting article questioning whether WPS would benefit from taking a year off in 2012 to regroup. Wilt makes a number of important points about finances in WPS, noting that the current financial climate for the league and all of its teams is impossible to maintain.

His argument that everyone needs to be paid less and that administrative staff needs to be cut down is a little hard to swallow. Most of the players are, with a few exceptions, barely clearing $25k per season and most teams don’t have a front office staff of more than a few people. But with revenues and ticket sales being what they are, either a change has to be made to balance the books or teams will continue to lose money and drop out of the league.

Wilt outlines a tiered payment system:

• Base player salary budget of $100,000 to $150,000 per team. 18 players per team. $0k to $3k per month in season per player.
• 2-3 designated players per team. $4k to $10k per month in season per player. DP salaries are off budget.

Most players in the league would not be making more than $20k a season and some could be making close to $10k under this plan—painful totals for a “professional” league. But to put player salaries in line with the money actually coming in through ticket sales and sponsorships, those wages are likely the only way to sustain the league.

Where do we go from here?

I know MLS involvement in the women’s game popped up on both Twitter and in the press conference with current league president Jennifer O’Sullivan on Monday. This is not going to happen. Yet. The WPS model has been imperfect from the start and this is just further exacerbated with the loss of the 2012 season. MLS itself is just starting to get their feet under them and to try and take on an unsuccessful women’s league is not a fair task.

A Borislow return has to be out of the equation. It’s clear that no one wants to work with the man, and I don’t think we can blame them for this—we all deserve the right not to work with crazy people. There is a year to go through whatever has to be gone through to get the man out either via the court system or by any means necessary. (The PSP stands by our offer to posse up with pitchforks).

What needs to happen in the next year is a re-evaluation. The Peter Wilt tiered player payment structure is interesting. It would probably be a drastic change for a lot of WPS clubs, but it would allow more second tier women’s soccer teams to consider joining the league. With US Soccer requiring the league to have a minimum eight teams for sanctioning, joining the league must become easier financially.

There has to be investment in the league. Even after taking 2012 off, significant financial investment will be needed to make sure there is enough incentive for at least the biggest names in American soccer (and hopefully international players as well) to want to play in WPS. If they are designated players, if they just exist outside of a salary cap, whatever, there has to be the money to bring in top talent to be able to market the league.

When the league does resume play in 2013, one simple way for the league to raise money is for more people to go to the games. Yes, that means you, casual soccer fan. It was heartening to see the anger and frustration on Twitter all day from a wide range of soccer fans. But this is by far the most I’ve seen the league talked about in the two years or so that I’ve been covering it. It’s time to pony up, everybody, or this league is never going to work.

The decision was reached after a vote by team owners on Monday morning. Am email was subsequently sent to the players informing them of the decision.

The decision appears to be very much the result of the ongoing legal battles with Dan Borislow over his Florida-based franchise. “The litigation has diverted resources from investment in the league, ” the announcement said, “and has forced the Board to take action, suspending the 2012 season in order to address the legal issues head-on before moving forward with competition.”

‘“Everyone has been trying so hard to keep things going – considering settlement options, discussing union legal action to intervene in the lawsuit, etc.,” reads the email sent by the league, a copy of which was obtained by National Soccer Wire, “but we just couldn’t manage to make things work.”

The league announcement says, “Making the decision to suspend the 2012 season was a difficult and painful one, but it is necessary to take the time to address current issues and solidify our business in order to provide appropriate support needed to achieve the League’s long-term goals.”

NSW reports that, according to the email, league officials “currently plan to maintain league and team front offices in hopes of resolving outstanding litigation and holding a 2013 season, but details are still evolving.”

The announcement from the league confirms the intention to resume play in 2013. “With our supporters and athletes in mind,” the announcement says, “we are committed to complete the hard work necessary to resume play in 2013 and reestablish WPS as the premiere women’s professional soccer league in the world.”

The news comes one day after the USWNT won the final of the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifiers tournament.

For reaction from Philadelphia Independence owner David Halstead, please click here.

Rodriguez will come off the bench for Team Marta, which features defender Allison Falk in the starting lineup. Midfielder Lori Lindsey will start for Team Abby.

Independence midfielder Caroline Seger is a member of Team Marta but her injury will keep her off the field.

The two players receiving the highest number of votes were allowed to choose their teams from the other worthy players. Abby Wombach and Marta will lead their teams onto the field tonight at 7pm on Fox Soccer Channel.

Full rosters:

Abby XI – Starters: Hope Solo, GK, Atlanta Beat; Amy LePeilbet, D, Boston Breakers; Lori Lindsey, M, Philadelphia Independence; Shannon Boxx, M, FC Gold Pride; Tina Ellertson, D, Atlanta Beat; Eniola Aluko, F, Atlanta Beat; Heather O’Reilly, M, Sky Blue FC; Lauren Cheney, F, Boston Breakers; Lori Chalupny, M, Atlanta Beat; Abby Wambach, F, Washington Freedom; Cat Whitehill, D, Washington Freedom. Reserves: Angie Kerr, M, Atlanta Beat; Karen Carney, M, Chicago Red Stars; Kelley O�Hara, F, FC Gold Pride; Laura Kalmari, M, Sky Blue FC; Tasha Kai, F, Sky Blue FC; Jillian Loyden, GK, Chicago Red Stars; Kate Markgraf, D, Chicago Red Stars (injured).

Marta XI – Starters: Karen Bardsley, GK, Sky Blue FC; Allison Falk, D, Philadelphia Independence; Rachel Buehler, D, FC Gold Pride; Kelly Smith, M, Boston Breakers; Sonia Bompastor, M, Washington Freedom; Ramona Bachmann, F, Atlanta Beat; Marta, F, FC Gold Pride; Christine Sinclair, F, FC Gold Pride; Kristine Lilly, M, Boston Breakers; Brittany Taylor, D, Sky Blue FC; Aya Miyama, M, Atlanta Beat. Reserves: Christie Rampone, D, Sky Blue FC; Becky Sauerbrunn, D, Washington Freedom; Amy Rodriguez, F, Philadelphia Independence; Erin McLeod, GK, Washington Freedom; Alex Scott, D, Boston Breakers; Cristiane, F, Chicago Red Stars; Caroline Seger, M, Philadelphia Independence (injured).

(Rosters courtesy: Sportsnetwork.com)

Caroline Seger throws up Thomas Payne's famous "Horns of Independence" sign

The Philadelphia Independence will play five matches on Fox Soccer Channel this season, beginning with a game in Boston on April 18.

The Independence have a packed preseason schedule including an autograph session on March 11 and a March 20 match against University of North Carolina. We will keep you up to date on other Independence events as they approach. On a brief aside, it seems strange that the autograph session is four days before the roster is trimmed from 28 to 24. I guess at least four signatures will quickly become collector’s items.

Full list of Independence TV matches after the jump.

Notable matches: July 4 at home against Boston, and they’ll play through the World Cup that MLS is taking off for. Three of their first four matches are at home in West Chester.

The Independence’s schedule is below. Home games are boldfaced.

Sunday, April 11:  Atlanta Beat, 6 p.m.

Sunday, April 18: at Boston Breakers, 6 p.m.

Sunday, April 25: Washington Freedom,  6 p.m.

Saturday, May 1: Atlanta Beat,  6 p.m.

Saturday, May 8: at St. Louis Athletica,  8:10 p.m.

Saturday, May 15: at Chicago Red Stars, 7 p.m.

Sunday, May 30: at Washington Freedom,  6 p.m.

Sunday, Jun 6: Sky Blue FC, 6 p.m.

Sunday, Jun 13: FC Gold Pride,  6 p.m.

Saturday, Jun 19: at Sky Blue FC,  7 p.m.

Wednesday, Jun 23: at Atlanta Beat,  7:30 p.m.

Saturday, Jun 26: Washington Freedom,  6 p.m.

Sunday, Jul 4: Boston Breakers,  4 p.m.

Saturday, Jul 10: at Chicago Red Stars,  7 p.m.

Saturday, Jul 17: at FC Gold Pride,  10 p.m.

Saturday, Jul 24: Sky Blue FC,  6 p.m.

Saturday, Jul 31: at Boston Breakers,  6 p.m.

Wednesday, Aug 4: at Washington Freedom,  7:30 p.m.

Sunday, Aug 8: St. Louis Athletica,  7:30 p.m.

Sunday, Aug 15: Chicago Red Stars,  6 p.m.

Sunday, Aug 22: at Sky Blue FC,  4 p.m.

Sunday, Aug 29: Boston Breakers,  6 p.m.

Sunday, Sep 5: St. Louis Athletica,  6 p.m.

Sunday, Sep 12: at FC Gold Pride,  TBD

U.S. forward Kenny Cooper moves to Plymouth Argyle on loan.

The Los Angeles Sol of Women’s Professional Soccer have folded. They were the best team in the league last year and had the best player, Marta, who will now be drafted to another team.

Egypt and Ghana will meet in the final of the African Cup of Nations.

Independence top pick Malorie Rutledge

The Philadelphia Independence drafted six players in today’s Women’s Professional Soccer draft, including local product Dani Collins.

LSU midfielder Malorie Rutledge led the way as the expansion Independence’s first pick, which came in the second round at No. 13 overall. The Independence had traded away their first rounder to acquire U.S. international forward Amy Rodriguez from the Boston Breakers.

Like their MLS counterparts, the Independence made draft day trades to move around in the draft, held today at the Philadelphia Convention Center.

Rather then break down all the complications that went down after a too-long work day, I’ll simply accept that I wasn’t there to follow it all and just list for you who (it looks like) they got in addition to Rutledge. (Right now, my brain is mush, and the Independence’s draft maneuvering looks more complicated than the nuclear power documents and congressional legislation that I’ve been reading today.)

• Fourth round – Kelly Henderson, defender/midfielder, Boston College.
• Fifth round – Mallori Lofton-Malachi, goalkeeper, South Florida (acquired from Atlanta)
• Seventh round – Caitlin Farrell, defender, Wake Forest
• Seventh round – Dani Collins, D/M, William & Mary

For a full list of players selected in the draft, click here.

Of the picks, Collins might be the most interesting because the team actually hired her in October to work in community outreach and youth development for the Independence. The two-time All-American also hails from the Philly area, according to WPS.

So I guess it makes sense to draft her, but what would have happened if the Chicago Red Stars got mischievous and decided to burn a pick on her?

Yes, it’s been a long day, so I’ll shut up and let you weigh in with comments below.

The Independence, an expansion team in Women’s Professional Soccer, will play a fellow expansion team, the Atlanta Beat. Their second match will come against the Boston Breakers in Boston, a match that will be televised on Fox Soccer Channel.

“Opening day against Atlanta at our home venue gives us the opportunity to get our WPS season kicked off in proper form in front of the Philly fans, with lots of hometown fanfare,” Independence General Manager Terry Foley said.

The team is offering a one-day promotion that ends at 6 p.m. tomorrow: Buy a ticket for $25 and be guaranteed a  seat between the 18-yard lines as well as entry to the home team’s inaugural match festivities at West Chester University. For more information, click here.

The match takes place the day after Philadelphia Union play D.C. United in their Major League Soccer home opener at Lincoln Financial Field, so it’s a full weekend of new Philly teams in action.

Posted via web from The Philly Soccer Page