Women’s Professional Soccer Embroiled In Ugly Fight With Team Owner

Coming off of the highest rated Women’s World Cup in history, this seemed to be Women’s Professional Soccer’s chance to make some inroads. With players like Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and Hope Solo leading the way, the league was bound to find itself in plenty of headlines. Safe to say, this was not the kind of headline they wanted: “WPS seeking to terminate Florida franchise with Hope Solo and Abby Wambach, lashes out at renegade owner”.

That’s the headline of a Washington Post article detailing the WPS’s response to being sued by MagicJack owner Dan Borislow, who was seeking a court order that would keep the league from dissolving his franchise. Since buying the Washington Freedom, moving them to South Florida and renaming them after his company, Borislow has drawn rebukes from the WPS Players Union, as well as from the league. Among his alleged transgressions are bullying former players through email and installing himself as coach. He has since appointed Wambach as a player-coach.

All of this has led the league to issue this statement:

Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) holds all teams and owners to a uniform professional standard, and all owners must agree to those standards in order to play in the League. When Dan Borislow took over as the majority owner of the Washington Freedom (now magicJack) franchise, Mr. Borislow had an obligation to follow, and embrace these standards and to honor the franchise’s commitments to the League, players and sponsors.

Mr. Borislow has failed to honor his commitments to the detriment of the League, our players and our partners. From unprofessional and disparaging treatment of his players to failure to pay his bills, Mr. Borislow’s actions have been calculated to tarnish the reputation of the League and damage the League’s business relationships. Now, Mr. Borislow has filed a baseless legal action against WPS. The League is not intimidated by Mr. Borislow’s unfounded claims and will not tolerate his mistreatment of players and flouting of the rules.

Mr. Borislow is asking a Florida court to bar the League from exercising its right to terminate his franchise at the end of the season for breach of his contractual obligations. No such entitlement exists under League contracts, and Mr. Borislow’s many contractual breaches more than justify any decision by the League to terminate his franchise.

“It is disappointing that rather than run a professional organization and partner with his fellow owners, Mr. Borislow has chosen to threaten the League by filing this action,” said WPS Board Chairman and Atlanta Beat Owner, T. Fitz Johnson. “All of us at WPS are involved in this business because we love the sport, we are committed to our incredible athletes and fans, and we know that there is a permanent place in sports for the women’s professional game.”

“We continue to focus on our world-class athletes and their accomplishments, and we won’t let the antics of one owner steal the moment from them and from our fans,” said Anne-Marie Eileraas, CEO, Women’s Professional Soccer. “We will defend the League against Mr. Borislow’s latest attack and will continue to hold all of our teams to the same professional standards in order to protect our players, fans, teams, partners and the integrity of the sport.”

Among the league’s complaints against Borislow is an apparent unwillingness to spend money on promoting the team or even building a team website. He has refused to allow his players to speak with the media at various times and has not put sponsor boards up around his home field.

Borislow has responded by blaming the league for the troubles:

“They just wanted to keep on getting their paycheck and not come up with a sound business model and take the shortcut and find some other suckers,” Borislow said in a statement Wednesday. “The largest lie is they were not threatening to take the team away at the end of the season like their letter purports, they were going to take away the team this week.”

Some have speculated that the league’s latest action may mean that they have found someone else willing to take over the team. Either way, it’s hard to see how this is ultimately good for the league.