Serious Competition for WPS?
By: Tom | September 25th, 2008The genius of comedy is in its timing, and the same goes for spite.
For several months, we have heard the tremors of fear in the English women’s game about the formation of WPS over here. The Premier League across the Atlantic — the mighty Arsenal and one or two other clubs aside — is something of a lopsided shambles, with many clubs lurching from financial crisis to financial crisis, and some going out of business altogether.
The low rewards for playing in such a poorly paying and unstable structure made the English clubs realise pretty quickly that WPS would offer a considerable challenge to their hopes of retaining the best English players from 2009 onwards. Arsenal boss Vic Akers sounded off about this a while back in The Guardian.
And now the timing: less than 24 hours after WPS announced its international draft list (with two England players on it), the English FA suddenly announced it will be forming a new Super League to run in the summertime from 2010. And England players will be awarded central contracts by the F.A., which according to England coach Hope Power “will prevent our best players from joining the Women’s Professional Soccer organisation in the USA.”
Thus, just as WPS teams found out which international players they can chase after for contracts, they were suddenly been given some serious competition.
So what does this mean for WPS, and the teams that selected English players in the draft? Will they sign long-term deals now, or perhaps not even come over at all? Would teams have drafted differently had they known about the English league beforehand? Did some teams know this was in the works and others didn’t?
Category: WPS News
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Comments
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I am not particularly phased by this announcement. I’m actually happy to read that the FA plans to finally treat these players as professionals. Shame it took a new pro league to form in in the United States for them to do it. And the small number of British players who will wind up in WPS… meh. WPS is still going to be filled primarily with American players – it’s in the friggin rules. The only threat here is the realization that WPS teams will probably eventually be ranked higher than the FA teams in future club world rankings. And the FA can’t have that. HA!
Another interesting question (and one being brought up in the wps fanzone forums) is why there were no German players in yesterday’s draft picks. Yeah, why weren’t there? Anyone know?
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United States
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There have been rumblings of this Super League for a while. WPS must have been aware. Maybe that’s why they didn’t take many English players?
As for the Germans, we assumed that none were taken because the players wouldn’t come over. Germany has the best women’s league in the world (tied with Sweden) and it’s established and funded. Why leave Europe for an untested league in a country where the WUSA already failed?
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United States -
Good point. Also, the German players get paid in Euros.
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