Podcast: UCLA law professor Steven Bank on NASL v. USSF
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Nov 2, 2017
Breaking news analysis: NASL vs. USSF Hearing
The NASL seeks an injunction against U.S. Soccer to order the federation to maintain the NASL's Division 2 status for 2018.
4 comments about "Podcast: UCLA law professor Steven Bank on NASL v. USSF".
Read more comments >
Next story loading 
Pretty good analysis, but most people are not interested in listening to lawyers talk for more than 2 minutes. With that in mind, I will be brief:
Nothing happened during the hearing to give NASL reason for hope. Judges are not timid about recommending that the parties settle when a plaintiff's case appears to have merit. That hasn't happened here. You shouldn't read into the fact that the judge focused only on one issue anthing other than that is the weakest issue in NASL's case. If NASL's evidence on one issue is weak, the evidence on the rest of the issues doesn't matter no matter how strong it is.
The hearing is just about the injunction--it doesn't reflect the probability of winning the case, only if the judge will allow this specific injunction, which is diffiicult to "prove" given this is essentially a conspiracy theory. And people who operate around these issues typically don't leave smoking guns lying around for prosecuting attorneys to pick up BEFORE discovery. So the bar to allow the injunction is high. Whether or not NASL can hold their breath until the February election remains to be seen, but that might be their best hope for redress if this is going to turn into an 18 month court battle over the husk of a defunct league. Because teams may not invest another season on the basis of Hope.
A written opinion hasn't been released, but the judge has reportedly denied the motion. At the hearing she indicated that the weakness in NASL's case was a lack of evidence of wrongdoing by USSF. This ruling would indicate that NASL will likely lose. Alleging a conspiracy is easy; proving one is difficult.
NASL's basic problem is that it doesn't have enough clubs. So why doesn't it merge with USL? The answer to that would reveal what is really going on here. It has nothing to do with USSF or MSL.