Breaking Down the Draft

By: Melissa | September 24th, 2008

First things first. If you haven’t already bookmarked the NJ Sky Blue FC blog, you should get on that immediately. The writers are excellent and my only wish is that they started their blog over here instead of on Blogspot.

Annnd, today they take a stab at interpreting the draft. I read those rules last night, and I swear, after a few drinks, they made total sense. But now that I’m having a sober morning, I’m really thinking, wtf? So let’s see if I can summarize this mess for everyone:

1. The draft, which should really be named “The 2009 discovery period,” starts Thursday Sept 25 and continues “through the 2009 season.” On Thursday, each team can select up to four international players to begin exclusive negotiations with. There is a pick order (and according to the NJ Sky Blue blog, the Bay Area is first) which indicates to me there is also a pick order for the players entering this draft. I can’t seem to find any info on the teams or players lists and their rankings. If anyone’s got the info, please share!

2. Teams can elect to pass on a player but if they choose to begin negotiations, that player should be within the last six months of her current team’s contract. But if she is not, the player’s current club must grant that WPS team access to the player. Each WPS team can negotiate with up to six international players at a time. Each team can sign up to five international players during the 2009 season.

3. This “discovery period” is only one of three methods for teams to gain access to negotiate with an international player. There’s Thursday’s draft, the Oct 6 General draft (no word on how players can enter this yet), and teams can file what I can only assume is the WPS version of what MLS calls a discovery claim. And it looks like discovery claims are ongoing and are not capped (yet).

So this leaves me to ponder two things: that WPS hasn’t started thinking of how and when to force teams to freeze their rosters and there are no restrictions on the number of claims teams can start tossing out. Shit, if I was a GM, on Thursday, I’d immediately file claims on everyone at FFC Frankfurt.

Speaking of… I keep reading rumors that Ali Krieger extended her contract to 2010. While I understand she’s a great player, I just don’t know if she’s good enough to play on two different teams on two different continents at the same time. Ooh, maybe she’ll prove me wrong.