MSL, U.S. Soccer Officials Discuss Unprecedented Cooperation
Two old adversaries sat together in the same room at the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel in Baltimore Wednesday. And they seem to have gotten along.
Officers of the Major Soccer League (until Tuesday the Major Indoor Soccer League) and the U.S. Soccer Federation got together to talk about putting aside their differences and about the future of the sport.
Ron Newman, coach of the Sockers, said it was the first time the USSF has bothered to talk cooperatively to any professional soccer league in this country since he came here from England.
“I would say this is pretty historic,” he said. “In the 24 years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen these two groups be so cooperative. I’m very encouraged.”
There is one main reason for the change of heart. FIFA, the sport’s international governing body--which hates the indoor hybrid--pushed the USSF into cooperating with the torch-bearer of indoor soccer when it mandated that a professional outdoor league be in place before this country can play host to the 1994 World Cup.
Right now, the MSL is the only professional soccer league with financial backing and front-office personnel that meets FIFA’s standards. And it seems willing to play a limited outdoor schedule “not within the next 12 months, but quite possibly within the next 24 months,” Socker owner Ron Fowler said.
As the only professional soccer league sanctioned by the USSF, the MSL will cast one-third of the votes at USSF elections scheduled for Aug. 5 in Orlando. Werner Fricker, current president of the USSF and running for reelection in August, was in Baltimore for the meetings.
Fowler made it known that the MSL wants cooperative leaders.
“We will be using our voting strength to forge a closer working relationship with the USSF in the future,” he said.
USSF officials were on their way to Milwaukee for a U.S. team exhibition and not available for comment.
Newman might have triggered the dialogue with the USSF in February when, during the league’s All-Star break, he suggested the best American players from his league play the U.S. national team in a three-game series, the winner advancing to the World Cup.
The USSF ignored him.
“I think they thought I was being a bit arrogant,” he says now. “We knew we weren’t going to go to the World Cup. We weren’t prepared for that, but they didn’t know that.
“I guess I had seen a red flag, a problem, and I was really trying to help. I thought that they wanted some games where the result was critical to them, where they would be playing under intense pressure and they would be making decisions under intense pressure. The players would suddenly find it much more difficult to kick the ball and make decisions because they would be facing the possibility of not going to the World Cup. They didn’t face that situation in any games (before the Cup), they just played a bunch of exhibitions that didn’t help anything.”
Because there was no dialogue between the two groups, the national team lost a chance to secure “the best player in the country,” Newman said.
His name is Brian Quinn, a Socker midfielder known for raising his game at playoff time. The native of Ireland could have become a U.S. citizen in April, Newman said, in time to play in the World Cup.
“When the USSF heard that, their eyes rolled in their heads,” Newman said. “They said, ‘Well you didn’t tell us.’ But they didn’t ask. The doors of communication just weren’t open.”
Newman said he has always been happy to help the U.S. team obtain North American Soccer League or MSL players. But he says the federation takes advantage of the situation.
In fact, he said he still resents the way the USSF prepared the national team for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Newman loaned the team three players from the Sockers--Kevin Crow, Hugo Perez and Jean Willrich.
“Then they turned around and actually kidnapped our players,” Newman said. “They didn’t send them back as promised, and all of a sudden we had to play our games three players short.”
But after Wednesday’s discussion, those kinds of problems may have been alleviated.
“They told us they wanted to use our players if they were made available more easily,” Newman said of Wednesday’s meeting, which was attended by both Fricker and U.S. team Coach Bob Gansler. “Well, we want them to use our players, and we will do everything we can to make them available, providing we get the right notice.”
Added MSL Commissioner Earl Foreman: “We want our players on the national team. That will be good for us, good for the players and good for this country.”
The first move toward cooperation between the two groups will be a two-game series between an MSL select team and the U.S. team. Newman said they are tentatively scheduled for some time in September in the Midwest, probably St. Louis and Kansas City.
MSL Notes
The Sockers will have the first and fourth choices in today’s MSL draft. They received the first as compensation for Keith Weller leaving to coach the Tacoma Stars. . . . Commissioner Earl Foreman said the league will expand by at least one team before the 1991-92 season. The team will go to Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn and play somewhere in North Carolina. . . . Foreman also said the league will announce a new national cable TV deal within 45 days. . . . Several rules changes will be instituted before next season. First, the goal will be enlarged by two feet in width (to 14 feet) and by a foot in height (to 7 1/2 feet). As per FIFA standards, all players will now be required to wear shin guards. On restarts, defenders will now be required to stand 15 feet from the ball instead of the current 10 feet. A three-foul rule will be instituted. If any player accumulates three fouls in a half, he will be assessed a two-minute penalty.
