More changes to the US Soccer pyramid are underway.

More changes to the US Soccer Pyramid are underway.

The number one question Joe Barone, director of the National premier soccer league (NPSL) gets asked whenever he’s interviewed is – “Is the NPSL looking to expand into a year-around model?”

Until now, his generic answer has been something to the effect of – “At the present time, it’s not something we’re looking at.”

Not anymore.

Our phone conversation with Barone began after the culmination of Juventus’ win over this year’s Champions League surprise semi-finalists, Monaco. “Look how well they (Juventus) are doing, even though they sold Pogba, Vidal and a host of other players,” Barone remarks, “they’re a pretty special team right now.”

Given his Italian heritage, it would be easy to assume that he was rooting for The Old Lady, but, wouldn’t surprise us if Barone was rooting for Monaco in the game. Barone clearly has an affinity for underdogs. Barone is an underdog.

Having immigrated from Italy when he was eight, Barone has grown up around the beautiful game. He is now the chairman of the National premier soccer league (NPSL); a semi-professional league comprising of almost a hundred clubs. That number is expected to increase significantly on the basis of expected expansion announcements. But, in part two of our Soc Takes exclusive with Barone, we’ll explain why it is more complicated than that.

In part one, we’ll focus on Barone’s answer to that oft-posed question. And, it surprised us. The answer, it turns out, is ‘yes’.

NPSL plus

“I admit, we need longevity of our NPSL championship. We need a national amateur league that has a 7-8 month championship. But, we also need to consider the problems; Weather, interest, demand and travel.

“So, we’ve been working with USASA (United States Adult Soccer Association) on a Division 4 plan with specific requirements. These will include financial requirements – a bond to ensure sustainability for multiple years – as well as longer championships. The plan will include a number of NPSL teams playing year around.”

NOTE: For the sake of brevity, we’ll call these teams NPSL-plus or NPSL + (this is not an official name).

“We are trying to meet the desires of some of our teams, as well as recognizing the challenges ahead of us.”

What are some of these challenges? We’ll dive into those in detail in Part 2, but suffice to say that scavenging of teams by PDL is one of them.

Barone presented his idea to NPSL owners in December to gauge their level of interest. Barone plans to provide details of the plan at the mid year meetings with USASA. His env

isioned timeline for the application of these changes is “within two years”.

Can NPSL get enough teams to make NPSL+ a viable project in two years? Well, as we all know, the devil is in…

The Details

Soc Takes understands that the NPSL+ teams will still be a part of NPSL during the league’s main season. But, teams that are capable of sustaining attendance/players/finances year-round will play March-October, similar to D3/D2/D1 teams in the country.

Additionally, Soc Takes understands that the league will continue to employ “elite-amateur” athletes for those leagues; with the knowledge that paying college students would ruin their NCAA eligibility. The league will also continue to be a home to recent college graduates without professional contracts.

“There truly is a huge void for player development at the amateur level,” Barone remarked during our conversation.

The NPSL+ teams would experience an immediate challenge – travel distances. With only a subset of teams able to make the jump to NPSL+ , travel distances would likely increase. Jef Thiffault, managing director of NPSL, disagrees.

“While the teams will be responsible for travel costs, we still want to create clusters for those teams. If you look at the map of teams in the North East and the South, there are enough teams to sustain different models,” Thiffault pointed out.

Problems

There is likely to be a triumvirate of responses to this idea from within the NPSL – the yes, the no and the maybes.

The yes group are the ones who have wanted NPSL to go this route. Without naming teams, Barone simply said – “You can probably figure out which teams are excited about this.”

The maybe group comprises a majority of the NPSL, who heard Barone’s initial plan in December, and were interested in seeing a more detailed path to becoming an NPSL+ team before committing to it.

The no group comprise a subset of teams who are not stable enough for the increased burden of year-round play.

So the key question is — how many teams fall into the “Yes” group?

On this question, we received conflicting information.

One source informed Soc Takes that about ten NPSL teams are posting financial numbers strong enough to support this idea; teams that are confident of strong attendances year around.

Another suggested that between 30-40 current NPSL teams are capable of making the jump to NPSL+ (Yet again, a reminder that this is not an official name).

Yet another source suggested that, over half of the current NPSL teams could make the jump to purported NPSL+.

Ultimately, it seems, the number ranges between 10-48. And, the reality of that number is probably going to determine the fate of the project.

What’s next?

Barone plans to ratify the idea with USASA as well as interested owners this summer. Once ratified, USASA-NPSL will discuss their vision with USSF.

What about NASL-aligned D3/PDL scavenging/NPSL expansion teams?

Read about Barone’s thoughts on all this and more in part two. Update 5/9/17: Part two is available by clicking here.