Women’s Pro Soccer Coming to Fullerton
The Los Angeles area, already the home of two professional soccer teams, the Galaxy of Major League Soccer and the A-League’s Orange County Zodiac, on Thursday gained a third team.
The National Soccer Alliance, a women’s professional league that will make its debut in April, selected Titan Stadium on the Cal State Fullerton campus as one of its homes.
The NSA, led by former Washington Gov. Booth Gardner and featuring virtually all the members of the 1996 Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. team, initially will consist of eight clubs.
In addition to Fullerton, they will be located in San Jose, Seattle, Dallas, Boston, New York/New Jersey, Washington and Raleigh, N.C.
Each team will play a 20-game schedule between April and July. Rosters will be limited to 18 players, with a four-foreigner limit. The top salary will be $30,000, plus whatever sponsorship arrangements are made by such stars as Mia Hamm and Carla Overbeck.
Anson Dorrance, who coached the United States to its 1991 world championship in China, is acting as chairman of the league’s advisory board but said Thursday he will remain coach of 14-time NCAA champion North Carolina and will not coach in the new league.
The NSA still needs approval from U.S. Soccer before it can go ahead. The federation is expected to sanction the league on Oct. 4.
No teams have yet been named, no players assigned and no coaches chosen. All eight teams will play in stadiums of no more than 5,000 capacity. Jennifer Rottenberg, the league’s development consultant, said NSA is operating on an initial $15-million budget and the teams will need to average 2,500 a game to break even.
