“I don't think anyone wants to cuddle a zombie.” - Norman Reedus

Just over two weeks ago Los Angeles Force was crowned as the 2024 NISA champions in an exciting match over Irvine Zeta FC. Tied one to one after extra time, Los Angeles took the title in penalty kicks. But, what should have been a compelling result to top off the league’s season, the match seems to be lost in the soccer zeitgeist overshadowed by financial troubles, numerous forfeits, organizational ineptitude, cronyism, and the banning of the Maryland Bobcats, the league’s regular season top point-getter, from the playoffs.

In one month’s time, NISA will hold their Annual General Meeting. Per a league email, the AGM will be held virtually rather in person to “enable the League to save money while at the same time ensure [sic] that everyone will be able to attend.” NISA enters an offseason in probably its most tenuous position since launching in 2019. Questions swirl about its financial stability, the number of teams it will field in 2025, and whether it will continue to be sanctioned as a Division III professional league by US Soccer. Let’s peer into our Xara-branded crystal ball to see what may be in NISA’s future.

This One Goes to Eight

One of the core requirements for a Division III men’s league from US Soccer’s Pro League Standards (PLS) is that a league has at least eight teams in its competition. Filling the team number requirement has always been a difficulty for new professional leagues in the US and NISA has been no different. But, NISA’s troubles in that regard have gotten worse over its more recent seasons.

In 2024 NISA launched with nine teams - five in the east and four in the west. The league had initially planned to go forward with 10 teams, but in February it announced that “Gold Star FC Detroit will be under new ownership, and it will take the season off to re-brand and prepare to play the 2025 NISA season.”

The Los Angeles Force was the lone founding team left in the league for its 2024 season. Since 2021 NISA lost three of its most stable clubs - Detroit City FC after 2021, California United Strikers after 2022, and Chattanooga FC after 2023. Los Angeles Force is owned by Bob Friedland who is also the majority owner of the league itself and seems to have practical, if not formal, control over how the organization is run.

The two other stable teams in the league are the Michigan Stars and Maryland Bobcats. The former joined in 2020 and the latter in 2021. Michigan has been a well-financed and consistently competitive team - winning the title in 2022. The Bobcats grew out of an amateur club and improved on and off the field each season until it became, for all intents and purposes, the best team in NISA this past season.

Irvine Zeta FC joined NISA this past season. While the team had a bit of a rough offseason, it weathered those difficulties to make it to the league’s title match. Irvine is understood to be a well-run organization.

But questions begin even with this core of four teams. Los Angeles is perhaps the only likely team to return in 2025. NISA is Friedland’s sandbox so as the league goes so goes the Force (and vice versa). An indicator might be that during and after the final Friedland was talking up a move to Long Beach in the team’s future.

The other, less likely, team to return next season of those core four is the Michigan Stars. It was rumored that Michigan was leaving the league following the 2023 season but, late in the day, the team returned for last season. George Juncaj, owner of the Stars, has also invested financially into the league and, so, has a vested interest in NISA. But, this summer Juncaj purchased NS Mura, a first division club in Slovenia and was appointed as Mura’s sporting director. As such, it would be understandable if Juncaj’s interest and financial help would focus on somewhere other than NISA moving forward.

Juncaj brought NS Mura to Michigan for its offseason camp. During that time, most of the best Michigan Stars players trialed with Mura rather than play in NISA regular season matches. Following a 2-1 win over Club de Lyon FC on June 2, Michigan did not win another competitive match the rest of the 2024 season. Over those 12 matches, Michigan drew three times, lost five, and received four forfeit wins. The Stars also lost their semifinal match 3-0 at Irvine Zeta. Is NISA still important enough for Juncaj to expend the time and financial resources on it?

Will the Stars return with Europe on their owner’s mind? *Image courtesy of Michigan Stars*

The expectations for the other two clubs to return are more dire. Irvine Zeta FC had a successful first season. But, even after making it to the championship match, rumors are that Zeta is not going to return to NISA for the 2025 season. And, other than perhaps an icon on NISA’s website, the Maryland Bobcats as we have known it will not return to league in 2025.

Things become much more murky after that. Capo FC joined NISA in 2024 but with an all-amateur team. Capo FC has had a USL League Two team since 2023 and is launching a USL W League team in 2025. Their NISA team theoretically sat on top of that internal pyramid in last season’s “experiment.” It will be interesting to see if they return to NISA in 2025.

Club de Lyon and Savannah Clovers FC sit in a similar position. Both joined NISA in 2023 but both have suffered from severe financial constraints over their two seasons. Both teams struggled to put teams on the field while Club de Lyon also had difficulties acquiring venues. It is understood that both organizations have been financially supported by the league. If they return it is likely that situation would continue.

Georgia FC is a completely league-owned team. Originally the expansion Georgia Lions was to join NISA for 2024 but that organization dropped out in preseason due to a lack in competent financial ownership. The league launched Georgia FC as a replacement. Even though financed by NISA, Georgia FC struggled through the season with financial difficulties.

The ninth team was an unmitigated disaster. Arizona Monsoon FC ended the season with one draw over 16 matches. The organization was led by the owners of the old Valley United FC team which flamed out of the league in 2022 due in large part to alleged violations of U.S. immigration law. The Monsoon disappeared halfway through the season after a 3-2 loss to Capo FC on July 20.

Beyond that, there are only two announced NISA expansion squads. Las Vegas Legends were announced to join NISA in 2025 last January. In an uncanny similarity to the Maryland Bobcats, the Legends were declared ineligible for last season’s NPSL playoffs “due to not meeting their financial obligations to the league.”

Maryland Bobcats celebrating before being banned by NISA.

The only other announced expansion squad is the likely vaporware Calabasas FC. That organization took over the formerly announced 1000 Oaks FC in November of 2022. Nothing has been officially heard from that NISA move since.

Sporting Integrity

“The integrity of the game is everything.” - Peter Ueberroth

NISA’s 2024 season was likely the most troubled in relation to its sporting integrity. One positive innovation put forward by the league was to have a regionalized regular season schedule with the west coast and east coast teams only playing each other in two scheduled travel windows. But, this plan was immediately scuttled when the opening bubble tournament, scheduled to be hosted by Georgia Lions SC, was quickly canceled when that team was replaced by Georgia FC.

That tournament was due to be the opening games of the schedule at the end of March which meant that the regular season opening was pushed back to the first week of April. While the four west coast teams played the first weekend, the east coast teams only began play the following week.

US Soccer’s PLS require that professional leagues must begin play before the first round of the U.S. Open Cup to be eligible to play in that tournament. NISA teams played in the first two rounds of the USOC before the league’s regular season play began. The league has likely received waivers from US Soccer’s PLS the past two seasons to allow its teams to take part in the USOC due to the lateness of the beginning of its regular season.

Two months later, NISA canceled the west coast swing for east coast clubs originally scheduled for early August. The league stated that “[a]s the clubs did not play the East Coast inter-conference matches, there would be a sporting integrity issue.” This left the four west coast teams playing each other over 18 matches and the east coast teams playing each other over 20 matches.

Forfeits became an epidemic during NISA’s 2024 season. Less than a handful had occurred over the league’s first five years but that number exploded in the just ended season. Los Angeles and Irvine racked up a combined total of seven forfeit wins over Arizona Monsoon - at least half of each team's scheduled games with Arizona. Arizona Monsoon did play four of its six matches against Capo FC but its other two were canceled rather than given as forfeits.

In the East Conference, the Michigan Stars received four forfeit wins (two over Savannah Clovers and one each over Club de Lyon and Georgia FC) while the Maryland Bobcats received a forfeit win over Club de Lyon in the last scheduled match of the season. Maryland’s sixth scheduled match with Club de Lyon was canceled rather than given as a forfeit.

The competitive balance in the league between the top two teams in each conference plus the number of forfeits those teams received led to a regular season that meant little competitively from the jump. The playoffs were all but determined by the June break for NISA’s annual Independent Cup competition. That tournament itself was also plagued by issues which led to a diminished importance due to teams dropping out and forfeits.

There is no direct indication that the two teams owned by the top two investors in the league received preferential treatment when it came to forfeit games or the decision to ban the league’s top point-getter from the playoffs. But, the league’s lack of transparency, seeming self-serving decisions to bend rules when convenient to moneyed interests, and the number of teams reliant on the league and/or certain owners to function, do little to improve NISA’s reputation as an insignificant organization with little sporting merit.

The Why of NISA

“Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death.” - Simone de Beauvoir

Perhaps the biggest, most existential, question about NISA’s future is “Why NISA?” The original answer likely would have been an independent league where professional men’s sides could play where not allowed by the MLS and USL franchise system. A big part of that was lifting up top amateur clubs into the professional ranks where they were otherwise shut out.

That quickly happened with teams like Miami FC and Oakland Roots who moved into the Division II USL Championship. Since then more acrimonious moves saw the multiple champion Detroit FC also move to USL Championship and Chattanooga FC sidestep into Division III MLS NextPro

Also during that time at least 10 teams flamed out of existence. Two other teams, Chicago House AC and the 2023 champions, Flower City Union, moved down into the amateur ranks. The latter team was denied a move into USL League Two by NISA because it claimed USLL2 was a competitor. And now, two of the league’s best teams are probably not returning for 2025 with the league gearing up for another legal fight with at least one of those, the Maryland Bobcats.

NISA has not been a collaborator with its teams that want to move on to other leagues. It has fallen into the same behavior of the traditional U.S. franchise model. That model generally sees a league punish teams for leaving or wanting to leave. That bearing flies in the face of the initially understood role that NISA was to play.

Probably more damning is that NISA has failed to create an environment where it is able to replace teams that have outgrown it with teams of similar competence. For every Chattanooga, Detroit City, and Flower City that leaves, NISA replaces them with Georgia FC, Gold Star FC, and Arizona Monsoon.

It is a potential death spiral where the overall quality of the league declines. And, to meet that magical eight team requirement, NISA has to fill the voids with papier-mâché front offices and ownership groups. Why would a competent men’s adult amateur side expend a huge amount of financial resources for an organization that doesn’t function?

In 2025, what is NISA for?

- Dan Creel