When Scratching the Pitch broke news of Rubber City FC’s decision to pursue membership in NPSL only days after announcing intentions to compete in NISA in 2019, we regretfully did not offer NISA an opportunity to respond to some of the issues raised by RCFC President Joshua Austin. Social media platforms, however, provided a venue for NISA to get its perspective to the masses.
In a Twitter thread initiated by Nipun Chopra (@NipunChopra7) of Soc Takes, NISA made it clear that RCFC had inquired about membership, but had not been granted membership yet.
A separate tweet provided, perhaps, some perspective on why membership had yet to be offered:
Like dozens of other groups that have approached NISA in the last year, @TheRubberCityFC never showed the resources, organization or plan to play at a professional divisional. Playing under USASA is likely a good starting point for them. We wish them well in their future efforts.
— NISA Official (@NISALeague) March 22, 2018
With regard to allegations that NISA was unresponsive to RCFC questions pertaining to unspecified issues, StP heard directly from Peter Wilt. Wilt is a long-time soccer executive, and is leading the charge to bring NISA to fruition.
“I don’t know what questions they asked that we didn’t answer. We responded to every inquiry they made and reached out to them again [Thursday] morning by email and phone. They did not respond,” said Wilt.
Even with RCFC’s change of heart, NISA states that it still has commitments from 6 teams that meet USSF professional league standards for Division III. This puts the league close to its stated goal of having 8-10 teams in a DIII league in its first year of competition.