The World's Game In The Heart of the Sun Belt

The Atlanta Silverbacks are one of six First Division organizations in the United Soccer Leagues that announced on Tuesday they have formed a separate league and filed for formal recognition from the United States Soccer Federation and the Canadian Soccer Association.

Boris Jerkunica, the Silverbacks chairman, sent me this release and commented succinctly:

“Here is the result of three years of work.”

He told me he “can’t comment on things right now beyond what is in the press release.” I asked him if the Silverbacks — who didn’t compete in 2009 in part because of disagreements with USL management — will field a team for the 2010 season. Jerkunica would say only that “we are putting plans together as we speak.”

The other organizations involved in the Team Owners Association (TOA) consortium include the Carolina RailHawks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact, St. Louis Soccer United and the Vancouver Whitecaps, who are bound for Major League Soccer in 2011 but will field a second-division squad in the yet-unnamed new league.

Late Tuesday afternoon the USL — whose purchase by the Atlanta-based NuRock Soccer Holdings Inc. this summer led to the breakaway threat — issued a statement saying it opposes the TOA’s application:

“. . . on the grounds that that there is misrepresentation, interference with USL business operations and substantial debt amongst the membership of the parties applying for certification.”

The USL did not elaborate on those points but defended its ownership model — a major bone of contention with Jerkunica and the other TOA parties — and said it will undergo “upcoming reforms” that also were not specified.

Inside Minnesota Soccer has been on top of the league-wide story all along and has all the goods.

Here’s what I’ve been blogging on the subject over the last few months.

The AJC’s Kristi Swartz cites the figure reported in a study commissioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation’s World Cup bid committee at $80 million, and I’m certainly hoping that number isn’t too optimistic.

The report concludes that having the World Cup within these borders in 2018 or 2022 would have a benefit of $5 billion across the board.

But I remain skeptical when I hear about any touted financial windfall associated with sports — whether it’s building a new stadium or playing host to a major event.

How are these figures arrived at? Which sectors of a local economy benefit?

Those are the perpetual questions that really never get quite fully answered.

Kartik Krishnaiyer reports today that the breakaway threat involving several United Soccer Leagues owners — including the Atlanta Silverbacks in something called The Ownership Association — is looking more likely.

Among the developments: Even some Professional Development League owners are unhappy with USL management, and further fractures in the developmental system of North American soccer could result.

Also, the new Atlanta-based owners of the USL system, whose purchase from Nike led to the breakaway threat after years of disenchantment, don’t appear to have satisfied the essential complaints about the organization:

NuRock Soccer Holdings, it is confirmed to us by multiple sources has a management plan for USL which does have some new wrinkles to the old operating procedures of the league. However, these changes we are told do not address the numerous, articulated concerns of the TOA.

Silverbacks president Boris Jerkunica told Atlanta Soccer News recently that serious machinations are continuing, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

Whether there will be organized men’s soccer of any kind in Atlanta — either with the Silverbacks or a PDL franchise run by NuRock last season — is among the unanswered questions apparently being sorted out.

There’s only one place in Atlanta where soccer fans can watch Saturday’s critical World Cup qualifier between the U.S. and Honduras.

Fado Atlanta, located at 247 Buckhead Ave. (near the intersections of Peachtree and West Paces Ferry), will be that nirvana. It’s one of the city’s top soccer watering holes as it is, but for unexplained reasons, the Brewhouse Café is not showing the game on its premises in Little Five Points.

The complicated story behind the decision by the Honduran federation to sell only close-circuit availability is here, and Yahoo’s Martin Rogers doesn’t hesitate to blame American soccer marketers for letting it reach this point:

“As is always the case with bureaucratic pileups of this nature, a swathe of finger pointing and insinuation has ensued. In reality, though, the primary fault lies with U.S. Soccer and Soccer United Marketing, the subsidiary company which owns its commercial rights.”

The U.S. can qualify for the World Cup in San Pedro Sula, a four-hours’ trips from Tegucigalpa and one of the most difficult venues on the continent. And even when there’s not a political crisis like the one that has consumed Honduras in recent months.

And then there was the so-called “Soccer War” that involved Honduras.

It was Conyers native Clint Mathis who etched an indelible moment in American soccer history eight years ago in San Pedro Sula. Another Atlantan, Ricardo Clark, gets ready for his first trip.

Game time is 10 p.m. ET, but given the nature of Buckhead traffic in general, and on Saturday evening in particular, getting to Fado with plenty of lead time is highly recommended.

Live the Pitch profiles Jason Longshore of Atlanta-based Soccer in the Streets, who truly embodies that organization’s objectives to help young people live better lives. His unselfish passion for the game, and those youngsters who benefit from his time and effects, also have a reciprocal effect:

“I can see the benefit it has for the kids that I work with but I don’t think they necessarily see how much it benefits me. I love it. My job motivates me to get up every day. I have worked jobs that I did not enjoy, dread going in, dread getting up, you just don’t enjoy your life. Doing something like this, no matter how much work it is or how hard it is, I am motivated by the fact that I am making a difference. A lot of these kids just need somebody to talk to that cares, that’s the most important thing, I mean I think of them like they are my little brothers.”

It’s such a rare and precious thing to know this in your heart and soul, and to be able to live it.

Fresh off their intervention with the U.S. Soccer Federation’s Sunil Gulati, longtime United Soccer League boss Francisco Marcos and Alec Papadakis, one of his designated successors with the Atlanta-based NuRock Soccer Holdings, are rubbing elbows with some of the leading suits in the global game.

Don’t laugh too hard. It makes sense for North American solons to be there, and certainly their presence couldn’t be any more audacious than Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber’s admonition to the big spenders of Europe to follow the single-entity model.

I can hear ringing peals of laughter for that one.

What remarks, if any, the USL brass might have for their fellow soccer executives in Londontown aren’t known right now, but here’s some very practical advice they might be wise to bring back to these continental shores:

“Let us hope Marcos and Papadakis are doing a lot of the learning part, as back in the US, the league they run is falling apart as if it were American soccer in the twentieth century. This is a shame, because much of what USL has achieved over the past two decades has been pretty impressive: a structure containing, in 2009, well over 100 professional and amateur clubs critical for the development of American soccer.”

And this:

“Forgotten in the byzantine details is one simple fact: USL-1 remains the only league in the world where the team owners do not control the league. This is why when the league seems unable to even properly schedule and market its USL-1 Championship final — Away from the Numbers reports that “the date and time of the Championship final second leg remains something of a mystery” — it becomes clearer why some owners believe an overhaul is needed to professionalize and market its elite division.”

That the United Soccer Leagues is in a state of flux these last few weeks is to apply very polite phrasing to what’s becoming a full-fledged disaster.

Ever since the Atlanta-based NuRock Soccer Holdings Inc. was named the shock new owner of the USL system earlier this fall, franchises in USL-1, where the Atlanta Silverbacks played until the past season, have been threatening to break away.

Just to serve up a little more background before I update this story:

The Silverbacks reportedly have been involved in these breakaway efforts, although club president Boris Jerkunica has not had any official comment.

According to an official USL release, NuRock was to take over franchise rights for a USL-1 franchise from the Silverbacks, who did not field a team in 2009 because of Jerkunica’s differences with USL management on a number of issues.

This summer NuRock operated Atlanta’s entry in the Professional Development League, an amateur entity in the USL system, after moving the team from Augusta.

The Silverbacks continued to field a team in the USL-run W-League, a women’s amateur league, ostensibly to keep a competitive toehold in USL. The Silverbacks women reached the W-League playoffs, in fact.

Now, on to the latest twists in an already melodramatic narrative:

Over the weekend, USL president Tim Holt told players in Miami, Carolina and Minnesota that they were being released from their contracts because those teams had not renewed franchise rights for the 2010 season.

Those three teams, along with the Silverbacks, formed an entity called The Owners Association (TOA) when the breakaway effort began. Also reportedly involved in TOA are Vancouver and Montreal, which have reached the upcoming USL-1 finals and which have been admitted to Major League Soccer or have MLS aspirations, respectively.

Today the excellent Inside Minnesota Soccer site picked up on a North Carolina report that USL and TOA representatives were meeting in New York with U.S. Soccer Federation head Sunil Gulati.

I contacted Jerkunica again today to find out where the Silverbacks figure in this situation and I got the following reply. It’s not much, but it reflects the general chaos and uncertainty about the fate of minor league soccer in North America:

“There is a lot of stuff going on. I can’t divulge much right now. The only thing I can tell you is that this battle has been going on for over two years and is one of the reasons the Silverbacks pulled out of the 2009 season. Hopefully, it will be cleared up soon.”

That all parties involved in this have been together with Gulati ought to be an encouraging sign that perhaps some accommodation can be made in an increasingly bitter dispute. Says Carolina owner Brian Wellman, who’s had some loose lips from time to time during it all:

“It seemed like at least a lot of the tension has stabilized because everyone finally got to meet face-to-face and everyone knows what everyone’s goals are.”

Then again, there’s this: Tom Dunmore over at Pitch Invasion came across this link describing how the USL has botched the scheduling for the USL-1 finals.

“No wonder many USL-1 teams want to break away from the league office,” Dunmore wrote on Twitter.

Some previous posts I’ve written about all this can be found here, here and here.

On Sunday Soccer in the Streets will hold its 20th anniversary celebration at the Park Tavern at Monroe and 10th in Midtown Atlanta.

You can purchase tickets online here for $50 per adult, and $15 per child age 12 and under. It features a black-tie celebrity game at nearby Piedmont Park, followed by a barbecue dinner, auctions, raffles and a concert.

Like most everything else SITS does, the proceeds will go toward its programs to help underprivileged children.

On Friday, Comcast Sports Southeast (Channel 45 on Comcast) will interview SITS executive director Jill Robbins about the event during its “SportsNite” program. That show airs at 6 p.m.

The U.S. Soccer Federation is making its final rounds this fall before narrowing down the list of venue finalists for its 2018/2022 World Cup bid early next year.

Those lucky cities that move on will have shown significant local support for their city. And like any good bidding effort, signatures are required, with 50,000 the ideal threshold for this particular event.

The folks over at Georgia Soccer, an integral part of the Atlanta venue committee, have a way to make it very easy for you to do this online.

So if you haven’t been able to sign a petition at a local soccer event, take a few minutes now and type in your name in support of Atlanta’s bid.

The U.S. chances for landing the World Cup might have improved greatly when Mexico withdrew its bid and promised to lend support to the American effort.

The Cherokee Tribune profiles a native Kenyan who’s working to help needy children both in the Atlanta area and on his native continent, mainly through educational and athletic opportunities.

The North Atlanta Soccer Association is helping the cause by collecting soccer shoes and uniforms to be used by children in African countries.