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As the male professional soccer leagues in the United States continue their Soccerwarz, the same mistakes and lack of leadership from the United States Soccer Federation are creating a similar situation for the women. Starting this summer, a brand-new independent women’s soccer league named USL Super League will debut going head-to-head against the NWSL.
Women’s professional soccer has been a struggling enterprise in the 21st century as the first pro leagues emerged in the USA and abroad. Both the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) and Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) leagues faltered after three seasons. Only now has there been some stability, with the NWSL celebrating its 12th season in 2024. But changes are on the horizon, as the USL Super League will join the NWSL at the top of the American women’s pyramid in August.
Only in the United States would you have two completely separate D1 soccer leagues competing against each other.
The “Soccer Wars” arrive in the women’s game
As long as there have been professional soccer leagues in the United States, the game has been rife with conflict. The ASL vs the US Soccer Federation in the 1920s. NASL vs the United Soccer Association in the late 60s. A cavalcade of lower division struggles have been fought over the years, most recently with the 2011 NASL breaking from USL, and eventually losing that fight.
Now Major League Soccer is encroaching into the lower division game, threatening USL after helping that league vanquish its rival in the 2010s.
But until now, the women’s side of things has been smooth sailing, at least in terms of not having cutthroat competition between different leagues.
That’s all about to change when the USL Super League joins NWSL as a division one league in the US.
It can be argued that USL started this front in the soccer wars by going for division one sanctioning. Originally, the Super League was announced as a Division Two league. But now, it…
Source link : https://worldsoccertalk.com/news/nwsl-vs-usl-super-league-on-a-collision-course-in-us-soccer-20231231-WST-479910.html
Author : Derek Reese
Publish date : 2023-12-31 20:00:00
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