MSL NOTEBOOK : NPSL Team Official Tries to Lower Barriers Between His League, MSL

One of the major problems in professional soccer in this country has been a lack of cooperation among its principals: the Major Soccer League, the National Professional Soccer League, the American Professional Soccer League and U.S. Soccer.

Whenever dialogues get under way, they quickly fizzle.

In the past week, those organizations gave themselves three more chances to blow.

Peter Deakin, the marketing director of the NPSL’s Milwaukee Wave, has begun a crusade to foment some sort of agreement between his league and the MSL.

Deakin worries that the two viable leagues are letting a window of opportunity close while they engage in an immature rivalry.

“With the World Cup coming in two years and the USSF so preoccupied trying to get the (tournament) going and the national team off and running,” Deakin said, “the indoor leagues have a wonderful opportunity to attract all the sponsorship money that’s going to come into the country. There is no place else for it to go.”

Except that the MSL and NPSL aren’t exactly attractive prospects for corporate dollars.

The NPSL can’t convince sponsors to invest in an organization including such cities as Rockford, Ill.; Dayton, Ohio; Canton, Ohio; Tulsa, Okla.; and Harrisburg, Pa. The MSL, which shrank from eight teams to seven before this season, projects a poor image as well.

What Deakin proposes is a joint marketing venture that would offer sponsors nine big markets: San Diego, Dallas, St. Louis, Cleveland and Baltimore of the MSL, and Milwaukee, Chicago, Kansas City and Detroit of the NPSL.

There remains one sticking point: NPSL Commissioner Steve Paxos and MSL Commissioner Earl Foreman are in what many consider a duel of egos. It’s a standoff now.

Deakin wouldn’t say it, but he hinted that if the sport is to survive, there will have to be some consolidation with the NPSL’s small-market teams forming a minor league and the others joining with stronger MSL teams.

“But right now I don’t think soccer is that sophisticated,” Deakin said. “We can’t afford to be picky. We can’t afford to drop any city. We should show some respect for what owners in (small) cities are doing and spending. We can’t just dump them. It’s going to have to be a gradual evolution.”

The beginning of which would be an All-Star game between the two leagues, Deakin thinks.

The MSL has spurned such suggestions in the past, but Foreman now says he is open to new ideas.

“My door has been open for the past 15 years,” Foreman said. “My phone is open. They know the number and I’ll be happy to listen to them.”

Socker managing general partner Oscar Ancira also seemed open to proposals and said he plans to call Deakin. MSL owners recently gave Ancira an April 1 deadline to come up with a league-wide marketing plan.

The MSL has come to an understanding with U.S. Soccer and will provide at least one player from each franchise to the national five-a-side team for the “indoor” World Cup in Hong Kong.

Since the tournament will be in late November, MSL teams will play the early part of the season minus some star players.

“But we should cooperate with the federation,” Foreman said. “We should make our players available and we should be proud that we have the players that would make up most of the team.”

The rules of the World Cup will be those devised by the Federation of International Football Associations. It differs from MSL-style play in two major ways: Five players instead of six, and no dasher boards.

Foreman hopes to use the tournament to convince FIFA to adopt MSL rules.

“We’ll have our people there pushing six-a-side,” Foreman said. “We have to sell our product.”

Socker Coach Ron Newman continues to pursue a path that would bring the MSL together with the APSL in an outdoor tournament this summer.

The APSL already has spurned a suggestion that the MSL field a select team that would compete against the APSL’s five franchises in a single-elimination tournament. And the MSL has said no to a counterproposal that three of its teams join up for an eight-team tournament.

Newman said there still is hope. If efforts to revive the Ft. Lauderdale APSL franchise are successful, Newman thinks he can convince the MSL to form two select MSL teams. That would allow for an eight-team tournament.

“This may be the start of something,” said Newman, who envisions a full-blown 24-team tournament in the future that also would include NPSL teams.