NASL Commissioner: “We’d love to honour the FIFA windows,” but it isn’t feasible for league… yet By Steven Sandor Posted on March 22, 2016 1 0 860 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Ottawa Fury midfielder Julian de Guzman will be an action for Canada this week. PHOTO: CANADA SOCCER This week, the Canadian national team has three NASL players on its roster the upcoming World Cup qualifiers. In a media conference call Tuesday, NASL Commissioner Bill Peterson made sure to emphasize that more than 60 full internationals are now signed to deals with NASL teams. But, many of those players will miss league games that conflict with the international window. The three Canadians will need to race back from a midweek game in Mexico and (maybe) prepare for their NASL season openers that coming weekend. In 2015, FC Edmonton’s season was affected by the loss of Lance Laing to Jamaican national-team duty; the club won just one game out of the 10 he missed. So, with more internationals on NASL rosters, the question arises: Should the NASL break for the international windows? Peterson said the matter has been debated at the league and ownership level. This year, the NASL will play through the windows, but he said it’s a policy that “we are not locked into.” “We’d love to honour the FIFA windows,” Peterson said. But, the issue is that if the league was to make room for the windows, he said it would need to start the season in March, and because of the risk of cold, snowy weather in northern cities, it’s not something the league wants to do. “We are not comfortable with that yet, from a development standpoint or a stadium standpoint.” As well, making room for FIFA dates would mean more midweek games, and Peterson said that would create more occurrences where players could face stretches of three games in eight days. And that creates concerns about wear and tear on the players.
