Think of SoccerReform.us as the Betty Ford Clinic of American Club Soccer

If the full implementation of promotion, relegation and free, independent clubs will dramatically improve our club soccer, why won’t our owners embrace them?  Why do we need a grassroots organization like soccerreform.us to move our professional club soccer into an open league model? Instead of asking why we need a grassroots organization to help foster this change, maybe we should ask why it has taken a century for the first one to form?After more than a hundred years of failure, adopting a proven model seems like a no-brainer.  The problem is, we are dealing with a case of chronic institutional addiction, and we are a century overdue for a grassroots intervention.

Playing Under the Influence

Really old habits die very hard.  American soccer league executives have been trying to pound a square peg into a round hole since 1894.  In spite of the brilliant track record of the open league model, they have steadfastly refused to adopt it. The closed league peg fit our twentieth century professional sports landscape under very specific conditions.  It worked when leagues shielded their clubs from international competition.  It thrived when leagues were stronger than, or had a controlling interest in, any overriding international governing body.  It functioned appropriately when leagues were widely recognized as the best in the world.The round hole of club soccer could not accommodate this closed league peg.  The game itself had already developed in an international context.  From the beginning, clubs were exposed to meaningful international competition.  By the early 1900s, the sport required a strong and independent international governing body.  With the possible exception of the first ASL in the 1920s - whose players led us to our one and only World Cup semifinal appearance – assigning top international status to any of our leagues would be delusional.  When the NASL crashed and burned in the 1980s, it was the latest in a long line of closed league failures.   After nearly a century of bankruptcies, reorganizations, and purges, it should have been clear that our closed league model could not produce a stable, growing, and successful top flight American soccer league.Through the fog of addiction, things are never clear.  When MLS arrived, attempts to jam that square peg into a round hole became officially chronic.  In 1994, Japan was experiencing a soccer renaissance as a result of opening their leagues.   Meanwhile, here in the land of opportunity, our new first division was granted their “single-entity” model.  It is the most closed, tightly controlled, and insulated top division soccer league – if not sports league - in the world. 

Continuing to Play While Impaired

Our new generation of soccer executives cannot kick the habit.  Their closed league dependency deepens, our federation enables it, and our club game suffers.  Despite dramatic success in Seattle this year, MLS average attendance records are as old as the league itself.   MLS Cups continually draw fewer viewers than international matches.  In a trend that began in the 1920s, European friendlies draw larger American crowds than domestic league matches.  The high water mark for US club international accomplishment was set over a decade ago.  Our recently formed lower divisions remain in a perpetual cycle of fragment and reform. 

Send Them to Rehab

Soccerreform.us is the only organization in American soccer history committed to ending the cycle of closed league dependence.  We are building a movement to open minds.  We are a grassroots effort committed to tripling the number of American professional clubs and freeing each one to reach their destiny.  We support the full adoption of a proven system in which independent, autonomous clubs compete for promotion and struggle against relegation in stable and open leagues.  We will not rest until the crippling closed league habit is finally broken.
   
Join us in a quest for one hundred and sixty American clubs across eight leagues in four divisions.  Join us to dramatically increase opportunities for players, coaches, staff, investors, supporters and American communities.Help American club soccer finally reach full potential.  Please add your name, your contributions, your stories, and your moral support to this effort.  Find out how many Americans it takes to open a pyramid.Just say yes.  Become part of the solution.In Sobriety,

Ted Westervelt
soccerreform.us

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