![]() I won’t elaborate on that because I was not around during the first year. They had a great accomplishment during the first year but they also created a big, big mess - you can look into what I am talking about with law cases, people went to jail and prison - that type of things. That was very difficult to promote the team the right way and to really promote yourself as a major team. We (the Mutiny) were owned by the league, not by individual owner - that affected immensely the quality of the product that was on the team. ![]() Certain players who were on visas were automatically (allocated) by the rules of the league at the time. And once you lose that many players, we became less of a team than expansion teams. ![]() It was one of those things where we lost 10 players in the dispersal draft, and that affected the quality of the team. Carlos Valderrama was unhappy about the move as well. That affected the press and the image of the team. The team was based - he (Valderrama) was the centerpiece and everything was organized around the star player Carlos Valderrama - and outside of his (Sakiewicz) power and outside of my power Carlos Valderrama went to Miami, and to rebuild the team would have taken probably a couple of years. "There were certain rules within the league when MLS decided to bring in Miami and Chicago as expansion teams, with dispersal drafts, we lost so many players including Carlos Valderrama. Kowalski went on to say this about the 1997-98 offseason: This however contradicts Kowalski, who said that "he (Valderrama) was an allocated player taken by the league and given to the Miami Fusion." In early 1998 according to the New York Times, Tampa Bay traded star player Carlos Valderrama to rival Miami Fusion for an allocated player and future draft pick. But we were able to achieve some of those things." It was a very difficult situation for him and for me to step into, to weed out the issues and the problems. They had some issues after the first season. ![]() When he took over the team, the team was in a bit of a crisis situation. "He attempted to do something in Tampa with the team. Former Mutiny manager John Kowalski said this about the early part of Nick Sakiewicz's tenure in Tampa Bay: In 1997, the club ended with 45 points (2nd in the East). The club ended 1996 with 58 points - good for first place in the East and making the Mutiny MLS’ first Supporter’s Shield winner. "Being a league owned team, they had chosen him (Sakiewicz) from within." said Hankinson. Sakiewicz became President and General Manager of the club shortly after team official Mark Fortunat was arrested for stealing more than $100,000 from the Mutiny. The Mutiny were a club in peril when Sakiewicz took over the club in October 1996. The Tampa Bay Mutiny would be Sakiewicz’s next stop. And he would sit on one box and I’d sit on the other and we’d share a telephone that’s just sitting on the floor." Nick would sit on one, because he was in Corporate Sales, and I was the Director of Player Development and had asked to go ahead and move to New York. And I have a funny picture that was taken because while construction is going on, there are no desks, there are no chairs, there is just construction - and two boxes. ![]() And they ended up securing office space right across from Grand Central Station. And when Doug Logan, the commissioner, took over MLS he wanted to move the league headquarters to New York - to Manhattan. "Originally, the MLS Headquarters occupied the ‘94 World Cup Headquarters out in Los Angeles. Sakiewicz was in Corporate Sales with Major League Soccer from 1995-1996 According to Hankinson, Around the same time, current Philadelphia Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz and former San Antonio Scorpions manager Tim Hankinson were hired by MLS. The club was awarded to Tampa by MLS without an owner - something that would ultimately prove to be its downfall. The Mutiny were one of the original 10 MLS franchises that were awarded on the heels of the 1994 World Cup in the United States. By 2016 or 2017, the Sunshine State will have two clubs once again.īut before Beckham F.C., before Orlando City, and even before the Miami Fusion, there was the Tampa Bay Mutiny. This is shortly on the heels of Orlando City being added last year. MLS is set to unveil it's newest franchise, the David Beckham-owned club in Miami. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |