The NPSL-A New League To Follow

By: Ryan | March 29th, 2008

I’d just like to give out a quick thanks to the powers that be for letting me post on the front page starting this week.

Anyways, for my first post here, I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention a relatively ‘new’ soccer league that is growing in the United States, the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL). Essentially what you have is just what the headline says ‘A League Run By Teams Instead of Teams Run By A League.’ The NPSL is the fourth-tier (so to say) of football in America and is a semi-pro league. This means many of the teams are made up of young players that are still in college and/or still have amateur status.

What exactly is the league about? Well, I’ll give everyone a quick primer and let you know the details.

The National Premier Soccer League (NPSL), is the successor of the Men’s Premier Soccer League (MPSL) which formed in 2002. In 2005, the league had been recreated into an expanded national league to accommodate teams from the Midwestern region, and in 2007 a Northeastern Region was added. In 2008, the National Premier Soccer League has become truly a national league with the addition of a Southeastern region. Each team plays a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 16 regular season games. The teams are comprised of players who play at the highest levels of soccer available to men.

The NPSL is sanctioned by the United States Adult Soccer Association (USASA) as an affiliate of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), the ruling body for soccer in the United States and FIFA the world’s ruling body for soccer. Integrity, Success and Longevity is what the National Premier Soccer League stands for. The NPSL operates and is managed as a team run league. The structure of the league will allow each participating team to have one vote on the executive committee. Each team is owned and operated individually, and is responsible for maintaining league minimum standards and for raising its own operating cash. The existing team owners, that comprise the league management team, approve all new teams who desire to join the league.

So really, if you have about $20,000 dollars lying around you too can be a Executive Director of a NPSL team.

But this is the type of football I love. It’s all grassroots and most of the people are simply volunteering to make the game better for everyone. It’s literally a bunch of football fanatics that got together, and decided to make a highly competitive league for amateur players to hopefully move onto the next level.

Right now, there are 30 teams that comprise the league and new teams are already slated to be added in the 2009 season.

Thanks to blogging, I’m currently ‘working’ for the defending Eastern Conference Champs Queen City FC. It really is a cool gig. All sorts of volunteers, a youth side, and lots of players and coaches that want to make football work, especially here in Buffalo, New York. We’ve got a 4,200 seat stadium, beer sponsors, fans chanting and singing, an old-school English-style pitch, what more could a football fan ask for. And for most teams, tickets are usually $5-10 dollars.

Most teams as well really give back to the community. Some start inner city football programs designed to let kids get a taste of the beautiful game in a safe and fun environment. And the best part, the leagues are usually free of cost to the children.

This isn’t a rinky-dink operation either. All teams are required to meet standards in order to stay in the league. This includes having proper fields, PA announcers, a certain number of seats, etc. It is a real league. Also, the league does get births into the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, which Queen City FC will be playing in come the end of April.

Leagues like this are just another example of how the sport is growing in the States. These kids will be the next sets of stars in the MLS, as we had one of our players go pro in the A-League this season. This league is a great stepping stone for talent hoping to make it to the next level.

So from time to time I’ll be covering the NPSL happenings here on The Offside because it’s the grass roots stuff that really makes the football go round in this country. We already have the MLS, that is for sure, but with more leagues like these, the game will really start to take off.

So I encourage you to take the time to look at the NPSL website, find a local team, and head out and support them.