NASL Press Release
The North American Soccer League (NASL) confirms recent reports that the USSF Board of Directors, at its meeting yesterday, withdrew its provisional sanctioning of the league. The NASL understands that the Board’s decision was based on its conclusion that the league fails to comply with certain of the newly heightened Division II professional standards.
Despite this decision, the NASL understands that it may resubmit its application for sanctioning. The NASL intends to work closely with the USSF to resolve the USSF’s concerns and resubmit its application as soon as possible in order to be sanctioned at the USSF Annual General Meeting to be held on February 11 – 12. The NASL will not pursue sanctioning as any other division under the USSF bylaws.
The NASL and its member teams are fully committed to establishing a long overdue stable structure and platform for second division soccer in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The NASL looks forward to working closely with Major League Soccer (MLS) at the first division level and United Soccer Leagues (USL) at the third division level and below in developing soccer in North America at all levels.
Aaron Davidson, CEO of the NASL, commented, “We have invested a lot of time, energy and resources over the past four years to establish a proper team-owned and governed professional second division soccer league and separate ourselves from the instability and annual team turnover of USL, the former second division. The USSF and the soccer community have realized that it’s time once and for all to launch a new second division with higher standards which finally ensure the stability, growth and prosperity of second division soccer in North America. We are prepared to respond to the USSF’s concerns and look forward to delivering on our commitments to our teams and fans to re-launch second division as the NASL in 2011.”
