By RYAN TOLMICH
In the wake of the recent FIFA indictments, the NASL has taken action against those involved.
The NASL announced Wednesday that the league’s Board of Governors has suspended Chairperson Aaron Davidson, while also suspending business activities with Traffic Sports, owners of the Carolina RailHawks.
“In light of the ongoing investigation announced by the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday, the North American Soccer League’s Board of Governors has suspended Chairperson Aaron Davidson, along with all business activities between the league and Traffic Sports, effective immediately,” the league said in a statement. “Commissioner Bill Peterson will serve as acting Chairperson.
“The Carolina RailHawks, the sole NASL club owned by Traffic Sports, will continue to operate in the ordinary course of business. The club’s management team will continue to manage the day-to-day operations.”
The history of the modern NASL has been intertwined with that of Traffic Sports, who previously owned the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, Atlanta Silverbacks and over 40% of the Minnesota Stars.
As president of Traffic Sports, Davidson was instrumental in helping sculpt the league in its opening seasons. In the years since the company sold shares in most of their assets in the league, Davidson had taken a role as Chairman of the NASL Board of Governors.
Davidson was one of numerous executives indicted Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice as a result of a series of bribes and kickbacks given in recent years.
If you want the NFL model look towards MLS. If you want the global model, look towards NASL.
Total hitjob on NASL. Wouldn’t be surprised if the MLS/US Soccer good ole boys network are behind this.
They might be next.
MLS controls the FBI now?
Oh man, I knew this whole thing was going to generate some hilarious comments on here
Traffic Sports was always shady. They had a bunch of US players that all disappeared (Gale, Tony Taylor, Brian Dominguez, Daniel Villegas). The only one that escaped with a career was Greg Garza. Hopefully, this leads to NASL just falling apart and USL becoming MLS2, which it basically is.
Why would you WANT NASL to fall apart?
It is going to, but why do you WANT that? I am on the other side wondering.
It is typical fanboy culture. The same reason why iphone and android users talk smack about each other and their devices; or why Marvel and DC fans talk smack about each other. It is completely irrational. Both iphones and androids are great. There are great movies from both marvel and dc. The fan boys get so entrenched into whatever they are a fan of that they feel they must try to “defeat” the other side.
Same for MLS/NASL.
NASL and USL would be stronger as one league.
I think the reason that USL and NASL split was because of philosophical differences. If USL is more interested in the centralized, top-down MLS approach, and NASL is more interested in a decentralized model, how would you reconcile the two?
I agree that it would be great to have one aspirational 2nd division with teams in markets like NY, Indianapolis, San Antonio, as well as Pittsburgh, Charleston, Sacramento, Austin, etc. But the ownership of the teams in those markets don’t seem to agree on how they would run their league. So without agreement on that issue, there really can’t be a combined USL and NASL. At least that’s my read on things.
Jayboy, why stop at hoping that the NASL fails. Why don’t you just throw out MLS and USL with them. Yeah, let’s just demolish the entire pyramid.
Maybe you’re on to something…
I like this idea much better.
While I agree wholeheartedly how detrimental Traffic was to the careers of some US Youth players, I disagree with the notion of hoping that NASL falls apart.
I want to see more competition, not less. Competition always brings out the best for the sake of the consumer, which is us.
Also, if you look at the history of American sports leagues – major, significant growth always occurred when an “upstart” league came on the scene to compete against the “established” league.
Great. Let’s watch an entire professional soccer league collapse. Let’s throw out everyone involved with it including all of the players, coaches, staff, employees, etc., because one ownership group was corrupted.
How could that possibly be good for the game in this country?
Somwhere Gale Agbossoumonde is holding up his middle finger and saying “thanks for the almost 4 years of indentured servitude”
Since you decided to go off on the tangent:
If that young man should be flipping anybody the bird, it should at any adult who was NOT affiliated with Traffic to sign that infamous deal. He was young and lacked experience. Nobody forced him to sign the ill-advised deal.
Andy’s point still remains.
We finally know what NASL’s business model is. Bribery!