The situation between the United Soccer Leagues and its former clubs has been documented for the last several months. Everything has been read and heard on this site to Inside Minnesota Soccer’s Brian Quarstad & Richard Farley’s Inside the Six podcast. The main points of this argument from the former clubs of USL-1st Division is that they want to have more freedom and help build their league for the good, while the new & old leadership of USL just wants their money for allowing these clubs to legally operate within their structure.

Well US Soccer has finally made a ruling on the situation of both parties and they have decided not to give their official o.k. to either of them. From US Soccer President Sunil Gulati here are his comments on the ruling.

“After carefully reviewing the findings from the Task Force it was clear there are still too many uncertainties for both organizations, which would be extremely difficult to resolve in a timely fashion that would allow them to prepare for the 2010 season.

In the best interest of soccer in the United States, we decided to not sanction either league at this point. However, we did encourage both leagues to come together in the next week and attempt to develop another plan which would allow a single league to be approved on a provisional basis.

We are committed to finding ways to improve the long-term viability of all leagues and teams and continue the growth of soccer in the United States.”

I have to say that this is an interesting ruling from US Soccer as we know very well that both sides are already at each others throats and any sense of both sides coming to an agreement with each other is going to take more than just a week. This situation had to be looked at very carefully from US Soccer as a simple decision couldn’t be made so quickly.

But if you really think about it, shouldn’t they have paid attention to what was going on down in the second division of club football. I understand that their World Cup Bid Committee was priority number one, but couldn’t they have allowed one of their members of the front office to keep a close eye on the situation before it escalated into something that was nearly uncontrollable?

As of now the status of Division II football is back in the air, hoping that one of these two sides can get a plan together and become a single league again. I just have a funny feeling that there will be more bickering and chaos. But if somehow both parties can come together and find a solution to this major problem then I would have to assume during the 2010 season major plans would be worked out for 2011 and either all the clubs return to the USL, or the NASL will begin and whoever is left within USL becomes Division III of Club football. What a great way to bring in the New Year isn’t it.