NASL’s sues U.S. Soccer

By : Michael McCann | SI

The ongoing legal battle between the North American Soccer League and the U.S. Soccer Federation entered the New York state court system this week. In an aggressively worded complaint, NASL has sued U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber and 13 other members–but not every remaining one–of the U.S. Soccer Board of Directors.

NASL contends that U.S. Soccer board members have unlawfully breached their fiduciary duties of care, loyalty and obedience to U.S. Soccer and the professional soccer leagues it governs. The board members did so, NASL insists, by rigging the process in which leagues are classified. The alleged rigging allowed the board to favor those leagues in which members are professionally associated and through which members gain financially. In turn (so the theory goes), board members have conspired to dispatch NASL “to either obscurity or extinction.” NASL demands that a court award damages and also enjoin the board from any further action that could harm NASL. That the lawsuit comes just days before U.S. Soccer’s presidential election adds yet another wrinkle into an increasingly heated battle.

Read entire article: Sports Illustrated