April 1, 2009
NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
FC New York to compete in USL-1 next year


New York -- It's official. New York has a team in the top division of the United Soccer League.

FC New York has joined the USL First Division, it was announced at a press conference in New York City on Wednesday.

The club will expand the USL First Division to 13 teams for the 2010 season. The ownership group, led by New York natives Jo-Ellen Treiber and Doug Petersen, along with USL founder and president Francisco Marcos, and USL executive vice president and COO Tim Holt announced the news at a press conference held at the Yale Club.

“We are excited to bring professional soccer back to New York," Petersen said in a statement. "The USL First Division has established itself as a highly respected and competitive professional league in North America. Our group will rise to and relish the challenge of putting together an organization on and off the field worthy of the greatest city of the world. It is also our intention to announce a European club affiliate in 2009 to aid the club’s effort moving forward.”

The last time a New York team competed in the top flight of the USL was the 2001 Rough Riders.

“We are thrilled to welcome FC New York as the newest addition to the USL First Division,” Holt said. ”Their ownership group’s impressive and ambitious plans to develop a complete soccer club with a strong international partner and privately-financed future stadium will boost the profile of our league in one of the world’s largest and most diverse markets. The conditions are right for FC New York to excite the soccer community, which has a history of support for top-level professional soccer. With the additions of the Austin Aztex and Cleveland City Stars for the upcoming season and the Tampa Bay Rowdies and FC New York in 2010, the USL First Division has added important markets and ownership groups that will strengthen the league for years to come.”

FC New York has a commitment with Hofstra University to utilize James M. Shuart Stadium and the state-of-the-art training facilities. The 13,000-seat stadium will host league and international exhibition matches. Plans for 2009 include establishment of q youth academy, hiring staff, player recruitment and indentifying sponsors.

The FC New York shield is representative of the Queens flag, which was adopted June 3, 1913. The blue background with a horizontal white stripe is symbolic of its first Dutch governor William Kielt, who acquired the area from the Native Americans. The area's first settlers are represented by the two flowers - the tulip, emblematic of the Dutch, and the double red and white rose of the English. The Queen's crown signifies the name of the county and borough in honor of Queen Catherine of Braganza.

It also was announced that the group’s advisory board includes Hofstra alumni Jim Kilmeade, who was the general manager of 1995 Long Island Rough Riders championship team in what is now the USL Second Division, USL’s top flight at the time. Former Rough Rider and MetroStars defender Travis Rinker also will serve as an advisory board member. Other key advisory board members also include Mark Francis, a New York financier and British chartered accountant, and Almut von Biedermann, an international business strategist of Munich, Germany and Alicante, Spain.

For additional information on FC New York, contact Samantha Treiber or visit www.newyorkusl2010.com.
BigAp

USL Reaches for Big Apple
Posted April 2nd, 2009 by editor
By Paul Gardner

Professional soccer in New York City? Now there’s an idea. I’ll buy that. And that’s what the United Soccer Leagues, the USL - which likes to define itself as an “alternative league” to MLS - is promising us.

MLS has dithered and dickered around this issue for all of its 14 years of existence - without showing any real signs of coming up with a Big Apple franchise. You might think we have a New York team. After all - the New York Red Bulls - that’s their official title. Frankly, they’ve got some nerve. New York? For a team that plays in New Jersey, has its offices in New Jersey, and has its practice facilities in New Jersey?

There used to be a tenuous New York transportation link - nice special buses from Midtown Manhattan straight to the stadium on game days. Now, even that service has been nixed. As far as I’m concerned that’s the umbilical gone. The Red Bulls are now officially and irretrievably the New Jersey Red Bulls.

But we’re soon to have FC New York, a new franchise in the USL First Division. “We are excited to bring professional soccer back to New York” - the words of Doug Petersen, one of the owners of FC New York. He was talking at a press conference yesterday at the Yale Club, in the heart of Manhattan.

I wish him and FC New York well. With the usual caveats and queries. Firstly, the name. Why FC? Meaning, I suppose, Football Club - when this is actually a soccer club. Last week we had another Manhattan press conference at which a series of tours by foreign teams was announced - to be called the “World Football Challenge.” Why football, when the sport to be played is soccer? Sheepish answers were given, but no convincing reason emerged.

Yesterday, the USL’s head honcho and only-creator, Francisco Marcos, American soccer’s great survivor, regaled us for 14 minutes, and used the world football repeatedly. I don’t know why, and neither did he.

Whatever. FC New York should be SC New York if they want to go with initials. But I pass on to the New York bit. Does that mean New York City? The official USL press release is in no doubt, with “USL-1 Headed To New York City.” I’d like to think that’s true. But it’s baffling to find the new owners talking about playing at Hofstra University. The Cosmos played there for a couple of years in the early 1970s. No doubt the facility is a hell of a lot better than it was in those days - it has to be - but it’s still not in the city. It’s some seven miles over the boundary, in Nassau County. It’s Long Island. New York State, yes - but not in the Big Apple.

Ignoring such technicalities, Petersen announced with brazen New Yorkishness that there must now be a trophy to be played for between the local teams - the other one being “our brothers on the other side of the river” - Petersen’s words, his way of putting the New Jersey Red Bulls in their non-New York place. And Zap! … here comes the shining trophy - a gold-looking apple, and a modest cup. The game to be called The Grapple for the Apple.

This is good stuff. But the big move for SFC New York will be to grab the fan base before MLS can move in. We know, with certainty, that there is a potentially huge Hispanic following for soccer in the city. All those Colombians and El Salvadorans in Queens, for a start - not that far from Hofstra. If SFCNY (that’s pretty awful, but they’ve forced it on me) can grab the allegiance of those groups, it’s going to make it difficult for MLS to move in.

The “ethnic fans” were mentioned at the press conference, so there is awareness. That’s a good start. SFCNY will start play in 2010. For the moment, putting together the team is a priority - plus, they tell us, the “establishment of a youth academy.” And the construction of a soccer specific stadium - site TBA.

Coach? Players? Not quite yet. Seems there’s talk going on with a European club that will be an affiliate, that will provide expertise. One can only hope that it will not be another of the dreaded British clubs that will be handing down advice. Because if that happens, if SFCNY puts a Brit-oriented team on the field, it will not interest the Hispanics, and will be throwing away its strongest asset.

Does their web site really need an upside-down "slain bull" logo? Kinda' tacky.

The official announcement says, "The addition of the club will expand the USL First Division to 13 teams for the 2010 season." I wonder if Portland and Vancouver will still be there for 2011. http://www.uslsoccer.com/home/317726.html

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I heard that Portland was playing USL in 2010 and Vancouver too I think.

They both are.

Both new teams websites are horrible, its pretty hard for a USL team to make ends meat and yet thier first public image they give is cr@p.