Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Strikers likely not to return this season
The Fort Lauderdale Strikers likely won’t take the field for the upcoming 2017 North American Soccer League season.
Strikers sources also confirmed almost all staff was laid off on Dec. 31 and few players remain under contract. Several former employees have been unable to cash settlement checks from the club.
The club is scheduled to host a Florida Cup match between Vasco Da Gama and Barcelona from Ecuador at Central Broward Stadium on Sunday. The Strikers pulled out of the Florida Cup in the fall and what is left of the Strikers staff will host the Sunday game.
Phone calls to the Strikers’ corporate offices Monday were met with automated messages saying the numbers had been disconnected.
Fort Lauderdale was plagued by financial troubles in 2016, with late payments to club staff and players throughout the season. The Sun Sentinel confirmed Strikers principal owner Paulo Cesso stopped funding the team on Sept. 1 and the league started vetting the Strikers so they could finish out the season.
In November, Tampa Bay Rowdies owner Bill Edwards filed suit against the Strikers, seeking $300,000 of the $700,000 his company, Marketing Solutions Publications, loaned the cash-strapped team last season. Court documents show the Strikers were released from having to pay $450,000 of the loans, however Edwards was still suing for unpaid principal and interest.
Sources said Edwards also sought to purchase the Strikers at one time during the 2016 season.
This fall marked the first time in five seasons the Strikers failed to reach the playoffs despite equaling a team-record 41 points for the season.
Despite receiving provisional status as a Division II professional league for the upcoming year, the NASL said Friday that eight clubs would compete in the NASL, including FC Edmonton, Indy Eleven, Jacksonville Armada FC, Miami FC, New York Cosmos, North Carolina FC, Puerto Rico FC and the San Francisco Deltas.
Missing from that group are the Strikers, who have been a part of the NASL since their reboot in 2011. Strikers ownership recently has been in talks with the France-based Paris SaintGermain Academy (PSG) to purchase the club.
Sources confirmed the league vetoed the sale because the asking price was too low and it would devalue the other clubs in the league. The estimated going rate for a NASL club is roughly $5 million, according to a source.
“They’ve had a number of ownership groups who have been interested in purchasing the club,” North Carolina FC owner Steve Malik said Saturday. “Our league has been vetting them, and we want an ownership group in place who has the time to be successful in 2018.
The Strikers, Malik said, “are not going to play in 2017.”
Strikers coach Caio Zanardi said he is waiting for direction from the club on a range of issues, including whether the team will play at all in 2017.
“I really don’t know,” said Zanardi, who remains under contract for two more years. “I am waiting. Maybe they are going to call me this week to explain the plans and the situation.”
He said there are “five or six players” currently under contract with the club.
“I think the meeting to finish everything will be later this week,” Zanardi said. “Until then, I can’t explain anything. I would like to know, but I don’t know until the club tells me officially.
“If we are going to play in only the spring, only fall or not at all this season, I need to know exactly.”
A Strikers front office source said ownership has not said whether the team would take the field this year and that the deal with PSG could still go through, possibly as soon as next week. The insider said while most Strikers players have sought employment elsewhere, other investors are interested in the Strikers.
Manny Gonzalez, who grew up minutes from Lockhart Stadium, longtime home to the Strikers before the club moved this summer to the smaller Central Broward Stadium in Lauderhill, was granted his release from the club in November. The Fort Lauderdale product has been training with the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the preseason for the past two weeks. The Rowdies, who will play this season in the USL, were one of three teams that recently bolted from the NASL.
“I am just trying to weigh my options and see where the best fit is,” said Gonzalez, who prepped at nearby Northeast High School and played four seasons for the Strikers.
Gonzalez said the club was late with player salary payments five times during the season — and added it was time to move on.
“The way things were, it didn’t look good for the club,” said Gonzalez, who was ultimately paid his salary. “I was there for so long and it was a little upsetting and hard to take ... it is my hometown club, and I hope they get bought.”
Gonzalez said his last contact with the club came on Dec. 22.
“We talked about money and what was owed,” Gonzalez said. “As far as what was going on next year and what the plan was, honestly they had no clue. They didn’t know who was staying, who the owner was going to be or who the coach was. They had no idea.”
Also, on Monday the NASL and Bill Peterson, league commissioner since 2012, agreed to part ways.