WUSA Likely to Return With Shortened Season
More and more, it appears the WUSA will return next season, with the same eight teams as last season, but with a modest schedule of eight to 12 games, plus preseason exhibitions, an All-Star game and a postseason.
The shortened season would work well in 2004 because top players will be forced to leave their WUSA teams to begin training with their national teams in July in preparation for the Olympics in Athens.
New sponsors would be asked to pay up to $20 million to a league that reportedly lost $100 million in three seasons before folding last week.
It also means there will not be a team based at the Home Depot Center at Carson, with existing franchises in Atlanta, Boston, Cary, N.C., New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Jose and Washington staying put.
In addition, one money-saving proposal calls for games to be played only in four cities, with the other four teams barnstorming from town to town. To maintain fan support, clinics and other team functions would be held in the four cities without a home schedule.
“Those four teams would be like the Montreal Expos,” John Langel, the lawyer for the WUSA players association, told USA Today. “Then we would build back to the point where you wound up with eight host cities again in either 2005 or 2006.”
Langel, former tennis great Billie Jean King and former U.S. Women’s World Cup coach Tony DiCicco are among the members of a group that has been studying ways to make the league more financially sound.
If the WUSA is not revived, the U.S. Soccer Federation said it was prepared to spend $1.8 million on the women’s team leading up to the Athens Olympics.
The money would be used to pay for salaries, game bonuses and training camps.
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Arsenal Flap Continues
Arsene Wenger, manager of Arsenal, apologized for his team’s outburst during and after a goal-less tie Sunday against Manchester United.
Six of Arsenal’s players face suspensions totaling 20 games and fines worth more than $800,0000.
Wenger also is under fire because of his postgame outburst directed at Manchester United’s Ruud Van Nistelrooy, who was taunted by Arsenal players after missing a penalty kick moments before the final whistle.
“I thought we overreacted to the situation and we apologize for that,” Wenger said in his first public comments about Sunday’s dust-up. However, Wenger also said, “Of course, you try to understand how and why it all went, but none of my players killed anybody.”
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Security Concerns
When England and Turkey play in a European Championship qualifying match Oct. 11 at Istanbul, fans will be sent through three police checkpoints in order to keep English fans from entering the stadium.
England’s Football Assn. was fined after fans at Sunderland, England ran onto the field during England’s 2-0 victory in April, the latest in a string of violent incidents that includes the murder of two fans of Leeds United before a match in Istanbul in 2000.
England needs at least a tie to advance to next year’s European Championships at Portugal. Turkey needs a victory to advance.
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Quick Passes
Roberto Ayala, an Argentine defender, agreed to a contract extension that will keep him with Valencia through 2007, and out of the hands of Spanish league rival Real Madrid, which had been courting him during the off-season.... Players from Borussia Dortmund agreed to a 20% pay cut after the German side failed to qualify for the Champions League. Teams competing in the Champions League made an average of $16 million last season.
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Times wire services contributed to this report.
