The North American Soccer League 2.0 and Brazil-based superagency Traffic Sports had been joined at the hip since the league was formed by rebel USL-team owners back in 2010.

In a release issued by FIFA, the headline states that the world football organization an "injured party." Basically, FIFA is telling the world that it's a victim.

NASL announced Thursday on its website that Downs will be retiring at the end of the 2012 season, and the search for a new commissioner is underway.

The Eddies got a thunderous volley from Elvir Gigolaj and a 25-yard equalizer from Paul Craig to get a last-gasp point.

NASL Commissioner David Downs will arrive in Edmonton Wednesday night, ahead of a Thursday meeting with city officials, including Mayor Stephen Mandel and City Manager Simon Farbrother.

“No, we aren’t comfortable with financing a Division-1 league,” said Leip. “Our owners are not interested in moving up a league. We have a lot of respect for the the kind of financial commitment MLS owners have made to create Division 1, and we certainly don’t want to tread on their territory. And, certainly the Cosmos only came to us after every road to MLS had been exhausted.”

FC Edmonton and the Montreal Impact both start the NASL season on the road this Saturday — and their fans will be able to stream those games, for free.

The North American Soccer League took a step towards stability with the hiring of an independent commissioner on Monday. David Downs will take over as the head domo of the second-division league on April 4. Downs has 30 years of broadcast experience as an executive with ABC Sports and Univision Communications. He negotiated U.S. broadcast rights for World Cups from USA ’94 to Brazil 2014. He was also the head of the U.S. bid committee for the 2022 World Cup, which lost out to Qatar in the voting.

According to the NASL, the Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps can field affiliated teams in Div. 2 as early as 2012. While neither team has concrete plans in place to have affiliated teams in NASL, Vancouver has retained its membership in the league and Montreal plans to do the same when it leaves NASL for MLS in 2012. This is consistent with previous indications from the league.

After a close board vote on Friday, the decision to give NASL the Division 2 sanction was ratified by the membership of the United States Soccer Federation Saturday in Las Vegas. But the sanction is only good for the 2011 season. According to a release from the league, “The NASL will need to meet certain requirements defined by the Board of Directors to be granted full sanctioning beyond the 2011 season.”