In every way, Julia Ashley is the perfect choice as a cornerstone player for Sky Blue, the New Jersey-based women’s professional soccer team. She was a high school star in Verona, became a leader at powerhouse North Carolina and dreamed about playing in her home state from the moment she first laced up her cleats.

“It would be so cool to play back at home, where my friends and family would have just a short drive to watch me,” Ashley said over the phone this week.

There was a hint of sadness in her voice because she knows that isn’t going to happen -- and that the alternative will make it almost impossible for anybody in her life to watch her games. Ashley had spent the past few days working furiously to get a passport and arrange her flights to begin her pro career almost 4,000 miles away from her home state.

That’s because Ashley and her agent were clear in the weeks leading up to the National Women’s Soccer League Draft this month: She would not, under any circumstances, play for a Sky Blue team that Sports Illustrated’s longtime soccer reporter Grant Wahl called “a disgrace.”

And the team drafted her anyway.

So now Ashley is headed to Sweden, to play for a club called Linkopings FC. One of the best young women’s soccer players in the country -- a proud “Jersey Girl” -- is leaving the country because New Jersey’s soccer team and its owner listened to her pleas about not drafting her and ignored them.

That owner? A guy named Phil Murphy.

Yes, that’s right, the governor of New Jersey is the one pushing Ashley overseas. Ashley had serious concerns about the off-field problems about the team that surfaced in multiple reports last fall -- and, to be clear, no one could blame her. The team, based on interviews with several current and former players and coaches, looked like a complete disaster.

Players lived in a house with “plastic bags for windows,” routinely had hellacious travel issues to save a few bucks and faced the less-than-professional choice of doing their own laundry or wearing dirty uniforms to practice.

The issues made Sky Blue, which plays home games at Rutgers and won just one of its 24 games last season, seem like a third-rate organization -- and made Murphy look like the worst kind of absentee sports owner. Players reported problems getting their medical bills paid on time, and that their baggage fees were not reimbursed on road trips, and that they are forced to use porta-potties at their practice “facility.”

In the days after the draft, Ashley said she had a conference call with her parents, Sky Blue’s management team and even Murphy himself. The governor gave her the hard sell about coming back home and helping build a winning culture here.

“He told me they needed me to come and help turn this team around,” Ashley said. “That was very flattering and cool of him. I don’t want to let anyone down.”

She was being polite. Ashley’s agent, Takumi Jeannin of the firm A&V Sports, had no problem saying what Ashley was too kind to say: That the team’s well-documented problems were not her fault, that GM Tony Novo still hasn’t shown any concrete plans for fixing them, and that several other top college stars had the same firm thanks-but-no-thanks opinion about playing for Sky Blue.

A spokesman for Murphy referred all questions to the team. Novo did not return multiple phone calls seeking a comment on Wednesday, but in interviews leading up to the draft he expressed confidence that the team would be able to sign its draft choices. He also seemed to take a “fake news” attitude toward the damning reports about Sky Blue’s many problems.

“There was a lot that was said and portrayed about Sky Blue FC and the conditions that was not true,” he told reporters. “Just report the truth, please. We do need to make some improvements, and we will make some improvements."

Remember: Those details about the “truth” came from the players themselves. They came to light when former star Sam Kerr, who was traded from the team this winter, was practically in tears after her triumphant return to New Jersey, wishing that she could take “every single one of (the Sky Blue players) with me” because “the girls deserve better.”

Novo promised to reveal the improvements in a month. Murphy even offered to give Ashley a tour. That wasn’t good enough for her.

“After years of not making changes, it’s hard to believe it will happen in a couple weeks,” said Jeannin, whose other top client, UCLA defender Hailie Mace, is also not planning to play for the club. “I think they were delusional that if they called with the governor of New Jersey, it would change everything.”

Ashley is trying to keep a positive outlook about the next step in her life. She knows that women’s professional players make a higher salary in Sweden, and she hopes the exposure to how the sport is played and coached in another country will improve her game.

The player legendary North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance called “a coach’s dream” and a “fabulous leader” is holding out hope that Sky Blue trades her to another NWSL team. Murphy and Novo should do the right thing and grant her wish to play elsewhere, because it’s clear she’s already moved on.

She isn’t bitter -- at least not any more. But she is confused.

“What I don’t understand is, why are you going to draft someone who doesn’t want to be in your program or play for your team? That doesn’t make any sense,” Ashley said. “But I don’t know how many players (told Sky Blue), ‘I don’t want to play for you.’”

That’s the sad part, really. The women’s professional soccer franchise in New Jersey is so poorly managed that a homegrown star who grew up rooting for the team is getting on a plane in a couple weeks to begin her career 4,000 miles away.

Gov. Phil Murphy, a bad sports team owner, only has himself to blame.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.