Thursday, December 4, 2008

Cleveland City in USL-1: It's Official




Today was the official announcement of City's promotion to the USL First Division. It was a nice press conference that got good media coverage. Chris Economides, USL First Division Senior Director, was on hand. He praised the team, saying that they are the example that all future franchises should follow. He also had high praise for the team's off-the-field work. Before this I never realized just how much work the team did in the community. They are truly dedicated to making the city a better place, as well as putting the highest quality product on the field.

After the meeting I spoke with GM Mark Geissbauer about the upcoming season. Here are the highlights...

-We ARE moving, but not to Byers. The team is considering:
Case Western
John Carroll
Baldwin-Wallace

-The team will honor all season tickets purchased up til now. So if you bought your tickets you will not see a price increase.

-They have a shortlist of 4 candidates as of now for the manager. All of the candidates have at least a UEFA "A-License." Mark expects there to be more applicants now that the team is in USL-1. They're looking to Europe for a coach, most likely from the UK or Germany. He also said that he expects there to be more applications now that the team is in the First Division.

-There will be player announcements very soon. The team has already been in contact with players from the past few seasons and are also scouting the world (mostly Europe and Africa) for new players. They also said that they will be signing higher caliber players since we're moving up a league.

-We have a 3-year contract with SportsTime Ohio to air our home games. Last season they got over 25,000 viewers per game. Pretty good for a Division Three team.

The GM also praised the role the Green Army has played in the team's undefeated regular season home record. There's also some more exciting news that I'm not allowed to print at this time. Hopefully it will be announced in the coming weeks.

4 comments:

American Ultra said...

Wish I could've been at the conference, thanks for the info. Can't wait for this season!
City boys we are here!

Anonymous said...

Great to have you boys in the USL-1!

http://railhawks.blogspot.com/

HSH_B said...

Reaching out to a fellow soccer team in Ohio.

Give me a shout @ hshcrew@gmail.com when ever you can so we can talk.

I'd love to organize a trip for the Columbus Crew Supporters to head to a City game this year.

Blake Compton

Ingrid. said...

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