i lurv x factor more than pie n chips

By: Melissa | October 11th, 2009

Karen Carney just twittered that today. Homegirl knows what’s up with popular tv programs (or is it programmes?). Anyhoo, a lot has been going on in the world of WPS since I last wrote. Free agency is in full swing and there’s been significant moving and shaking. Annnnnd the whole thing was explained by the WPS COO in a blog post which in this age of the internets, social media, and general short attention spans, seems entirely appropriate.

When a player signs a contract with a WPS team, many things are negotiated. Along with the compensation, is the duration of how long the player’s rights will be held by the team. Many contracts last for a year (or a season), with team options for subsequent years attached to it.

According to the WPS standard player contracts, teams have until 30 days after the end of the league season (which this year, was as of the All Star Game) to exercise their options. At this point, teams can do one of four things:

1. Exercise their option for a player – thereby bringing them under contract for the 2010 season. OR

2. Waive their right to exercise their option – thereby forfeiting their rights to extend the player’s contract for the 2010 season. As a result of waiving their option, the player then will become a free agent when free agency opens at the end of the options exercise period. OR

3. Do nothing, and let their option lapse, also rendering the player a free agent. OR

4. Sign the player to a NEW contract (rather than exercise her option) for the 2010 season and perhaps beyond. There are a few additional rules about this that apply depending on what the terms of the new contract are and whether or not the player was protected in the expansion draft, but I digress.

The options exercise period ended on September 29 and right on queue, each team announced who will stay and who will – not necessarily go but – become a free agent. Except one effin day before all that, Boston traded Amy Rodriguez to Philly for their 2010 first round draft pick. My only guess as to why that happened ONE DAY before free agency was that possibly she signed a multi-year contract in 2009? It’s just a weird trade is all. Moving on…

Boston grabbed Tiffany Weimer. They dumped one hyped yet underwhelming player for another. Except Weimer did play for coach Tony already at SoccerPlus FC so here’s to Weimer having a freaking awesome season this time around.

Philly grabbed Heather Mitts in a move that surprised absolutely no-one but did add a slight bit of intrigue to this free agency period.

They also signed Caroline Seger to a three year deal marking season two’s first high-ish profile international signing.

And then they traded their 5th and 22nd draft picks for LA’s Allison Falk and Val Henderson clearly demonstrating that Philly is more concerned with building a team of veterans over gambling with the upcoming draft.

FC Gold Bonds grabbed Candace Chapman out of free agency which is significant because I kinda hope they are attempting to sign the entire Canadian National Team… and then grab Canada’s new head coach.

Annnnnd, in a move that has nothing to do with free agency, Sky Blue FC announced Pauliina Miettinen as their new head coach. Not entirely what I hoped for (my soccer/Fargo dreams are completely dashed) but after reading the press release and how Sky Blue’s GM emphasized that Miettinen has a psychology degree and coupled with Miettinen’s quote that she wants to join the “family,” (she said family twice) I’m wondering if Sky Blue’s locker room will eventually start looking like this:

stuart-smalley-posters

But not to worry though, last time I checked, Natasha Kai still plays for them and I expect if Sky Who Blue start getting all touchy feely on our asses, she’ll be right there to knock some sense into those b*tches. Here she is keeping it real in ESPN’s recent body issue. I can’t imagine this picture would qualify to be posted on either Habs Offside or Wags Offside so it just remains here in this WPS ghetto. Enjoy.

kai

And here it is full size

Ok, I may have forgotten something but I think those are the big deals going down so far. Elsewhere in the world qualifiers are still underway for the first ever UEFA Women’s Champions League (and there are so many goram clubs participating, just click on that previous link to keep tabs on who is winning), Wales announced it will start it’s own professional league, there’s You Tube clips of Marta and Christiane playing in Brazil, and I am going to bring the StupidFilter back to WPS The Offside so you can see the results of a program written solely to “detect rampant stupidity in written English.” I’ll be running the text of all my blog posts going forward through this thing and adding the results in the footers…

StupidFilter results: Text is likely to be stupid.

(DOH! It’s my first ever stupid rating!)