Images: wps.com, AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE.
The future of the Women's Professional Soccer league (WPS) has been thrown into doubt yet again
after the termination of the majicJacks franchise. The WPS, which comprised six teams prior to the
'Jacks expulsion, was already operating under a one year waiver of the US Soccer rule that a league
must have a minimum of eight teams to be recognised.
As the 2011 MLS Season rounds the turn to the final stretch of the regular season, we've been
talking about playoffs quite a bit here. We've looked at playoff position and playoff chances based
on the current MLS table, based on a simulation, based on a target number of points, based on
points per game standings, and so on.
Wooh! What did we win again? Image: Getty Images/Daylife.
We're not even going to pretend we know what the hell is going on with these pre-season friendly
matches now. It's hard enough trying to keep track of fixtures when they're safely confined to a
league structure, but when squads start randomly roaming the globe and turning up in the most
unexpected places, we can't even pretend to know why or how.
First of all, let's make an honest assessment about the month of May for the Sounders. Eight
points through 5 matches isn't bad, in fact it is pretty decent. 1.6 PPM would put them 5 overall
on the League PPM table right now. By way of comparison to the last two season, 1.6 PPM though 30
matches is 48 points.
SOURCE: REPUBLICA
ABIN KHATIWADA
KATHMANDU, May 26: Though All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) claims the Nepali league
structure to be semi-professional, most of the clubs lack regular sources of income and are yet to
turn professional.
Almost every A Division club from the Kathmandu Valley is paying Rs 15,000 to Rs 50,000 per month
to a Nepali player, while foreign players are paid 500 to 1,200 dollars.
SOURCE: REPUBLICA
ABIN KHATIWADA
KATHMANDU, May 26: Though All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) claims the Nepali league
structure to be semi-professional, most of the clubs lack regular sources of income and are yet to
turn professional.
Almost every A Division club from the Kathmandu Valley is paying Rs 15,000 to Rs 50,000 per month
to a Nepali player, while foreign players are paid 500 to 1,200 dollars.
I've been sitting on this story for a couple of weeks now, waiting for more mainstream media to do
something on it and of course instead of it being a headline stop the press story it kind of sneaks
through the back door.
Basically what I have heard is that the Liga Primer Indonesia will merge with the Indonesia Super
League, the top 10 teams from each division will combine to form a new, I guess, super duper
league.
I have a new piece in Slate on parity in soccer, which of course means the lack of
parity in soccer, which means the fact that Real Madrid and Barcelona have combined to win 51 La
Liga titles compared to 28 for all the other clubs in Spain, and Blackburn is still the only club
outside the Functional Big Three ever to win a Premier League title, and even a plucky underdog
like Leyton Orient, after bravely winning an FA Cup draw against Arsenal at home, can expect to be
roto-rooted into oblivion by Nicklas Bendtner at the Emirates.
Mixed feelings on this suggestions I've seen that Avram Grant will chuck his reserves out for this
game lure me into the temptation of going full strength and causing an 'upset'. (It's being called
a potential upset, and I suppose it is but in the continuous football league structure we're only a
few [.
