Soccer
Historic $500 million MLS-US Soccer court case underway in New York
The now-defunct North American Soccer League (NASL) is alleging that the US Soccer Federation conspired to force its downfall.

This week saw the start of a long-awaited court case in New York that could have huge repercussions for the future of soccer in the United States.
The case, brought by the North American Soccer League (NASL), alleges that the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) conspired to force the downfall of the league. The case was first filed after NASL was dissolved in 2018. Since then, the sprawling legal case has spread to include the top tier of the American soccer system, Major League Soccer (MLS), as co-defendant.
The $500 million antitrust court case began on Monday with a 125-minute opening argument from NASL counsel Jeff Kessler, who has plenty of experience in American sports law. “It’s a small, insular world,” Kessler said of soccer in the US. “Either you belong or you don’t.”
Why are USSF and MLS in court?
The lawsuit boils down to a claim from NASL that USSF and MLS conspired to prevent the lower-tier league from competing with the more established MLS. The Federation is the sole authority in allocating divisional status to national soccer leagues in the United States.
The USSF can designate Division I, Division II or Division III status on different leagues. MLS is the only Division I league in the US, giving it an unassailable position as the nation’s premier soccer competition. NASL was sanctioned as a Division II league from it’s inception in 2011 to 2017, at which point it was made provisional after allegedly failing to meet second-tier criteria.

In 2018 the league was flatly denied Division II status, saying that “despite multiple chances, NASL has not even come up with a plan for eventual compliance with the Division II standards.” Second-tier status requires a minimum of 12 teams but NASL was left with just eight after four teams withdrew following the 2016 season.
What happened to NASL?
The NASL lawsuit accuses the USSF of conspiring with MLS to ensure that the rival league could not compete. The USSF shares close links with MLS through Soccer United Marketing, the league’s commercial arm.
“The established soccer powers of this country - USSF and MLS - did not welcome the competition that NASL wanted to introduce,” NASL counsel Kessler claimed this week. “Instead, they entered into an agreement - a conspiracy - where they took the professional league standards and applied it in a discriminatory way to prevent us from competing.”
Both USSF and MLS have vociferously denied those claims. NASL had contravened the sanctioning guidelines for years before the eventual drop from Division II status and was significantly smaller than MLS, which had already expanded to 22 teams by 2017.
“NASL was just not on Major League Soccer’s mind,” MLS counsel Bradley Ruskin said in court this week. “NASL and MLS were operating in different universes, different stratospheres.”
The case is expected to span three to four weeks in New York, with some big-name witnesses likely to take the stand. USSF president Cindy Parlow Cone and MLS commissioner Don Garber will likely be called, while NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony, former owner of NASL’s Puerto Rico FC, and FC Dallas owner Clark Hunt could also testify.
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