CHICAGO (Jan. 9, 2013) — The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has announced the list of 55 U.S., Canadian and Mexican National Team players that will be allocated to the eight clubs.
All 18 U.S. players on the gold medal-winning 2012 Olympic team are included in the allocation, while 13 of the Canadian players were part of the bronze medal-winning team.
Once the allocation process is completed, the club location for all 55 players will be announced on Friday, Jan. 11.
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The allocation process will be conducted with assistance from a panel of experts familiar with the player pool, including individuals from the collegiate level, recent professional and semi-professional clubs, and the youth and senior national team level in North America.
Along with the panel’s collective input on the technical ability of the players, in preparation for the allocation, players have selected their preferred destinations and the clubs have provided their preference with regard to specific players and qualities of players desired. Based on the input from the panel of experts and teams, players will be assigned numerical values on quality and desirability.
“The allocation will provide each club with a foundation of talent to build a competitive roster,” said NWSL Executive Director Cheryl Bailey. “Ultimately, the goal is to pair the teams and players in such a way that we achieve a fair distribution of talent across all eight teams. This is another important step as we continue to build towards the inaugural season of the National Women’s Soccer League. We are looking forward to sharing this news with our fans in the coming days.”
U.S. Soccer is subsidizing the salaries of 23 players, while the Canadian Soccer Association and the Federation of Mexican Football will each do the same for 16 players. With 23 U.S. players available for the allocation, all but one of the eight teams will receive three U.S. Women’s National Team players. Each club will also be assigned two Canadian National Team and two Mexican National Team players.
The NWSL is an eight-team league organized and administered by the U.S. Soccer Federation that will begin play in the spring of 2013. The eight founding clubs are the Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, FC Kansas City, Portland Thorns FC, Sky Blue FC (New York/New Jersey), Seattle Reign FC, the Washington Spirit and the Western New York Flash.