U.S. men’s national team winger Tim Weah has joined Brooklyn FC’s ownership group. In August, the club’s women’s team will begin playing in the USL Super League, the new first-division women’s soccer league, and the men’s team will move to the second-division USL Championship in 2025.

Weah, 24, was born in Brooklyn and grew up about an hour away in Rosedale, a neighborhood in the southeastern corner of Queens. As of 2022, his family still had a home in Springfield Gardens, about 40 minutes from where Brooklyn FC will play its home games next season at Maimonides Park in Coney Island.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to join Brooklyn Football Club’s ownership team and strengthen our connection to the people of New York, the borough I was born in, and the city I love,” Weah said in a statement. “BKFC is a grassroots-oriented club, focused on providing not only top-level professional football but new pathways and opportunities for women and men off the pitch as well.”

GO DEEPER

Inside the Queens neighborhood Tim Weah calls home

Weah has been a key member of the U.S. team over the last four years. He played in nine World Cup qualifiers, starting eight, and scored the opening goal of the 2022 World Cup tournament.

Weah just completed his first season with…

Surrounded by framed photos of sporting moments and business articles about herself, Amanda Vandervort seemed genuinely puzzled that anyone would want to know about her. Not Amanda the soccer executive, but Amanda the person.

“You’re asking my ‘why,’ not my ‘how’?” she asked.

Vandervort was sitting in her office in Tampa, Fla. at United Soccer Leagues (USL) headquarters, where she is president of USL’s freshly-minted Division One entry into the professional women’s soccer landscape, the Super League. Vandervort now is tasked with charting a course forward amidst questions about using a wholly different model than their fellow top-flight entity and the United States’ current premier league circuit, the National Women’s Soccer League, while avoiding the pitfalls of shuttered predecessor leagues.

GO DEEPER

Our writers discuss their initial thoughts on the USL Super League

Vandervort has experienced soccer through plenty of lenses: first as a player, then head women’s coach at New York University, in the Chicago Red Stars front office during the team’s stint playing in Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), then WPS’s media manager, women’s development consultant for FIFA, consultant and then vice president of fan engagement at MLS, chief women’s football…

The announcements have been made, the first press conference is in the books, and the USL Super League is now truly on the clock to finish building itself out ahead of the first game this August. Following last week’s Division I sanctioning decision from U.S. Soccer, more is coming into focus for the new women’s professional league — though not exactly what it might look like for the Super League and the NWSL to coexist atop the pyramid, yet.

“We congratulate the USL in their efforts to launch a professional league. We know the work and investment required,” the NWSL said in a statement, before it turned mostly into a reminder about who’s been around for a while now via a list of various accomplishments. The vibes do not feel warm and fuzzy, but that’s still just one piece of the puzzle to solve in the coming months.

While we know most of the basics around the Super League, there are a lot of lingering questions. There are also some lingering worries about how the U.S. can support two top-flight pro leagues at the same time that, in turn, prompt even bigger questions about the state of the game overall. Here we discuss all that and more. 

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There’s a lot still TBD

Steph: USL Super League president Amanda Vandervort gave us a good amount of info on her call, but…

Last week, U.S. Soccer approved Division I sanctioning for the USL Super League, a new professional women’s league set to join the NWSL atop the U.S. pyramid. 

On Tuesday, USL Super League president Amanda Vandervort held a press conference to give more details on the league’s upcoming August 2024 launch. Here’s what we know so far about the launch of USLSL.

What is the USL Super League? 

USL Super League is a new fully professional women’s soccer league. The league has been in the works for several years and was announced in 2021, but only recently received Division I sanctioning from US Soccer after deciding not to pursue DII sanctioning as originally planned. 

Division I teams operate at the highest level of U.S. Soccer sanctioning and also have the most stringent requirements to qualify, including minimums for population (750,000 in 75% of markets), stadium seating (5,000), operational budget (enough to operate for three years), and ownership net worth ($25 million). 

Can they compete with the NWSL?

Currently, the USLSL seems to be operating under the assumption of coexistence rather than outright head-to-head competition. The league is framing their plans as adding to the women’s soccer landscape rather than creating a schism. 

The league’s design also allows…

By Steph Yang, Meg Linehan and Jeff Rueter

U.S. Soccer has approved Division I sanctioning for the USL Super League, which is slated to begin play in August for the 2024-25 season, the governing body announced Friday after a vote at its Annual General Meeting.

USL Super League would be a professional league, as opposed to leagues like WPSL, UWS and USL’s W League, which carry amateur players on their rosters.

“This is a tremendous moment for the USL Super League and for women’s sports,” USL Super League president Amanda Vandervort said in a statement. “Receiving Division One sanctioning further showcases the work that our ownership groups, our clubs, and the league are doing to create a professional environment for top-level talent to compete.

“This is a crucial step toward realizing our vision to be a global leader in women’s soccer on and off the field. We cannot wait to see our clubs take the field when we kick off in August 2024.”

U.S. Soccer requires Division I women’s outdoor leagues to have a minimum of eight teams, 75 percent of clubs to play in metropolitan markets with populations of at least 750,000, and teams to have one principal owner with at least a 35 percent share with an individual net worth of at least $15 million, among other…

Fun fact most don’t know about Jason Kidd: One of the NBA’s 75 Greatest Players began his sporting life on the pitch.

Before being elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Before winning the 2011 NBA title. Before the 10 All-Star appearances. Before his days as an NCAA superstar for Cal Berkeley. Before falling in love with basketball as a youth. Before flag football at Rainbow Recreation Center in East Oakland. Kidd was a soccer star.

And contrary to his career as a prolific passer and assist man, he was a scorer in his soccer days.

“I was the opposite of who I was as a basketball player,” Kidd said. “I was a kick-it-to-me-and-I’ll-go-score type of player.”

And now he’s part owner of a soccer franchise. Kidd is the latest Bay Area celebrity to become part owner of the Oakland Roots and Soul Sports Club — Oakland’s lone committed pro franchise.

Kidd joins an existing group of investors that include Marshawn Lynch, the first star aboard in 2021, followed by multiplatinum rapper G-Eazy in 2022, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Josh Johnson, Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong last month and WNBA legend Ruthie Bolton.

The ownership group of the Oakland Roots men’s soccer team and Oakland Soul women’s pro team added more than 4,500 new members since…

There’s a reason why “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough” still adorns the Manchester United dressing room walls over 50 years after former manager Sir Matt Busby famously coined the phrase.

Thousands of miles away, at Sacramento Republic, there’s a record-breaking youngster proving that mantra: Da’vian Kimbrough.

Last week, Sacramento signed Kimbrough to a professional contract, making him the youngest senior professional soccer player in United States history. Kimbrough, a forward, was signed at 13 years, five months and 13 days old, younger than MLS record youngster Maximo Carrizo (New York City FC; 14 years old) and NWSL record holder Melanie Barcenas (San Diego Wave; 15 years, four months, 19 days) were when they signed.

Kimbrough’s from a sporting family, but soccer wasn’t prominent in his household. His father, Dom, played football growing up, and his mother, Jessica Cervantes, was a basketball player in high school. His grandfather, Roberto Cervantes, was the first to introduce him to the sport, with Kimbrough first joining North Bay Elite FC before heading to Woodland Soccer Club in their area.

Kimbrough joined Sacramento’s player academy as an 11-year-old in 2021, where he debuted with their U-13 team. In his first season, he scored 27 goals in 31…

WPSL. UWS. USL W. WISL. It’s easy to get lost in the scattered acronyms of the lower leagues of women’s soccer in the United States, leagues that have existed in various states off and on for decades now. Some of them resemble loose confederations of regional rivals, like WPSL. Some of them, like WISL, don’t even exist yet. What they all have in common is a desire to strengthen the footholds women’s soccer has in the U.S., and all on comparatively meager budgets. 

According to conversations with top executives at four of the biggest lower-division women’s soccer leagues in the U.S., these leagues are also attracting international teams interested in operating teams of their own. 

On first glance, the reasoning makes sense. NWSL only has so many slots available for expansion, and the cost of buying and running a team at that level is rapidly ballooning. But for a modest six figures, perhaps low seven in a D-II league, rich or even modestly successful European women’s teams might be able to establish feeder teams that have access to one of the best and biggest player pools in the world, with thousands of current and former NCAA Division-I athletes and elite high schoolers all also looking for a place to land that isn’t NWSL. 

“I’d say Europe, they’re looking…

Manchester United Women have completed the signing of Canada defender Jayde Riviere.

The Athletic reported that a deal was close and the 21-year-old, who was most recently with AFC Ann Arbor, has joined on a contract that runs until the end of the 2024-25 season.

Riviere said: “I am a huge Manchester United fan, so this is a dream come true for me to sign here.

“I’m really looking forward to developing and learning at this huge football club, and I can’t wait to use all my playing attributes to help us achieve our joint goals on the pitch.”

United’s head coach Marc Skinner said: “Jayde is an exciting young player who matches the long-term version of Manchester United, and our continued belief in nurturing the best young talent in the game.

Riviere, a 2021 Olympic gold medallist who has 36 caps for her country, is considered to be a forward-thinking right-back and a very promising talent.

She has recently played for AFC Ann Arbor in the semi-professional United Soccer League (USL) having joined in April 2022. She played four games for the USL League Two side and did not declare for January’s US National Women’s Soccer League draft.

Before that, she played three years of college football for the Michigan Wolverines from 2019 to 2022.

At the age of 16, in 2017 Riviere…