Photo credit: Kyle Eliason/Soc Takes

The following is a story by guest contributor Kyle Eliason:

MINNEAPOLIS — This past weekend, 90-plus owners of National Premier Soccer League clubs gathered at the W Hotel in downtown Minneapolis for the league’s Annual Owners Meeting. A member-owned and operated organization, those assembled discussed the NPSL’s plans for live-streaming its games, the process of vetting and approving expansion teams, setting minimum standards for facilities, updating the league’s bylaws, electing league officials and reviewing official disciplinary policy.

The proceedings were closed to the press and public, but Tulsa Athletic owner and NPSL board member Sonny Dalesandro and NPSL director of membership development Dina Case sat down with Soc Takes that Saturday to discuss the weekend and its goals, as well as the NPSL as a whole.

“We’ve tried to make it as valuable as possible for the members that are here. Really focusing on improvements and how to grow the game,” Dalesandro said. “That’s the biggest objective for everyone here — grow the game in America and provide opportunities for players and our coaches and our staff.”

Dalesando, a restaurateur by trade, wore his passions on the rolled-up sleeve of an untucked dress shirt, forearm tattoos visible, along with a Minneapolis City SC scarf. The latter, given Dalesandro by the host club of the weekend’s events, was removed in deference to his club’s supporters back in Tulsa before he and Case stood for a photo.

Case, who spoke to practical concerns of running a national amateur league, was dressed in business casual, wearing a black open-front cardigan.

The pair (pictured above) identified one of the league’s main focuses — and challenges — as helping different types of clubs all grow as businesses. Among its ranks are clubs with national aspirations, those with local, supporter-driven cultures, teams that serve as senior extensions of youth academies that exist first and foremost to continue player development, and even the odd outfit with an arguably higher calling.

“Buxmont Torch is a faith-driven club,” Dalesandro noted. “And Detroit City supporters will proudly hold their middle finger up. If fans want to get behind something and have that represent their tribe, beyond safety, we don’t want to have much of a hand in what a club’s personality should look like.

“It’s a mixed bag and it’s a lot of fun. I’d love to see a Buxmont-Detroit City final.”

Photo credit: Daniel Mick/NPSL.com

Asked how smoothly a large number of clubs with different philosophies worked together, Dalesandro was candid.

“When you have a meeting with 100 people, you’re going to find some differences between personalities. At the core of it we share in the belief that we have this allowance to express ourselves. We butt heads on a lot of stuff.

“I was in the South regional meeting today and it was very calm. Everyone was doing their stuff. I popped into the Midwest to ask a few questions and it was very passionate. They were going at each other. We’re all going to get it worked out. It’s just funny — literally from one room to the next — there’s a difference. Yet again, at that core, I think we all share a belief.”

Complicating matters is the competition facing the NPSL on a pair of fronts. From above, the United Soccer League, and at eye level, the United Premier Soccer League.

Starting with the latter, another national amateur league that is organized into regional conferences, the privately owned UPSL has expanded its roster of clubs at a rapid pace over the past few years. It now boasts over 300 teams, at times absorbing whole regional leagues to expand its footprint.

Asked if the NPSL felt it was now in competition with the USPL for markets, Case shared the league’s view.

“There’s always going to be potential competition in any market,” said Case. “Our philosophy on expansion is about bringing in the best business partners, and not worrying about what other leagues do.”

Case said that while she’s kept busy with the number of inquiries from clubs looking to join the NPSL, the league also actively encourages its members to recommend clubs they believe would make for strong business partners.

Dalesandro added his thoughts.

“I don’t think we want to be a league that ever says no to a good, viable candidate who loves the game and wants to bring that to their community. We want to be innovators in what we do.

“If we can bring this game to western Kansas and 500 people a game go out and they have something to do in the summer and we’re growing the game in those areas, that, to me, is incredibly important.

“Soccer’s going to be in New York. If we wanted to add another team in New York, Dena could probably do it in two phone calls. At the same time, we don’t have a team in Denver or Chicago right now. We want good groups from those places to know we’re the door to knock on.”

And while keeping a steady hand at the wheel is the NPSL’s plan with regard to the competition from other amateur leagues, a bolder course has been charted, at least in part as a response to competition from the professional ranks.

Dalesandro, elaborating, chose his words carefully and avoided mention of the city of Chattanooga, Tenn., where Chattanooga FC is drawing four- and occasionally five-figure attendances for games, and USL League One plans to place a new professional team — the Chattanooga Red Wolves.

Adding to the bad blood in the Scenic City, Roberto Martino, a real estate agent from Utah and the Red Wolves’ owner, hired Sean McDaniel away from Chattanooga FC’s front office to serve as his USL team’s general manager.

“I hope (NPSL director of media relations) Gary (Moody) doesn’t choke me, but there are some predatory habits in this country right now,” prefaced Dalesandro. “It’s really sad when you see a team that, in a way, gets punished for being successful. And I mean that in the sense of people will look at a market that’s doing well, and then another league will come in and approach people, kind of ape what they’re doing, and plop a pro team down.”

The recently announced Founders Cup — a nationwide tournament intended as a scalable trial run with an eye toward establishing a full-season national league — is one way the NPSL is responding to the challenge posed by professional leagues sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation.

The NPSL’s current summer-season format reflects the extent to which a majority of its clubs are reliant upon college players, with college programs releasing players in the spring and recalling them in the fall.

The Founders Cup, it is hoped, will help the most commercially successful and commercially ambitious clubs in the NPSL fulfill their goals from within the league.

“Having a short season, if you have a successful business model, can be problematic,” said Dalesandro.

“For us to try and create a mechanism for those teams to have more and be more impactful in their communities is really exciting, and is something that’s necessary. I think it can really change the overall dynamic, across the board, in U.S. soccer.”

Initial reports of the NPSL’s interest in fielding a full-season league with paid players called the prospective venture “NPSL Pro.” But the NPSL is currently sanctioned by the United States Amateur Soccer Association, and is not recognized as a professional league by the United States Soccer Federation.

Dalesandro was asked if that had caused any friction between the NPSL and USSF.

“I think (the USSF) has made a couple situations unnecessarily difficult when it comes to nomenclature,” he replied in a measured tone.

Thus, the NPSL’s official line is that it is an amateur league with amateur teams, some of which pay their players. The Milwaukee Torrent and Elm City Express, as examples, both paid their players last season, with the latter winning the 2017 NPSL championship.

Photo credit: Daniel Mick/NPSL.com

Dalesandro touched on expansion and a desire to grow the game across markets of all sizes, and how the NPSL is looking to establish two tiers of competition under its umbrella. He also noted success stories in the amateur ranks that drew professional competition into markets organically approached U.S. soccer’s third rail.

“What I can say is,” he paused. “We believe in a system where the justice of where a team should be is through what the ball does, and not what the wallet does — responsibly speaking. If you’ve got a men’s league team that can’t be beaten, they can’t be playing MLS-level teams. I don’t mean to throw too much hyperbole.

“What we try to do as a league is to be conformists, when you step away. Because what the rest of the world does with this game is promote a competitive system. I think that mindset aligns with a lot of the people who are members of our league.”

Changing gears as the interview wound down, and speaking for himself, the Tulsa Athletic owner bemoaned the lack of cooperation between different organizations across the landscape of U.S. soccer. Dalesandro referred to how helpful famous soccer executive Peter Wilt had been in answering questions Dalesandro had when launching Tulsa Athletic, noting Wilt was overseeing the Indy Eleven’s inaugural season and surely had enough on his plate without taking calls from Oklahoma.

“I think that the animosity between some organizations is so unnecessary and there’s not enough dialogue,” Dalesandro added. “My phone is on. If someone from USL League Two or the UPSL wants to call me, personally, I’m happy to talk to anyone. Our country has to get away from that infighting between entities in our game. If there are shared best practices that make the game better across the board, those are the kinds of things that (the NPSL is) focused on.

“The animosity has to go away. Our country missed a fucking World Cup. And a major part of it is because people are so scared to challenge or change systems in a healthy way that it’s come at the expense of the American player, and for the World Cup, the American spectator, too. There needs to be a new way of approaching conversation between people involved with the game. And this group is a good group with that.

“If you’re a men’s league team from Maryland, a four-time (Premier Development League) champion or a pro team, whatever we can do to make the game better. Let’s go.”

Follow Kyle on Twitter: @kreliason.

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