NWSL Announces Allocation of 55 Players to Eight Clubs

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has announced the allocation of 55 National Team players to the eight clubs as 23 Americans, 16 Canadians and 16 Mexicans found out their teams for the inaugural 2013 season.

The allocation process was conducted with assistance from a panel of experts familiar with the player pools, including individuals from the collegiate level, recent professional and semi-professional clubs, and the youth and senior national team level in North America.

Along with the panel’s collective input on the technical ability of the players, in preparation for the allocation, players selected their preferred destinations and the clubs also provided their preference with regard to specific players and qualities of players desired. Based on the input from the panel of experts and the teams, players were assigned numerical values on quality and desirability.

“This allocation process is obviously a big step in building the foundation for this league and each of the teams will benefit from a group of very talented players,” said NWSL Executive Director Cheryl Bailey. “This is always a difficult process, but we believe there was a fair distribution of talent across all eight teams and with the NWSL College Draft coming up in Indianapolis on Jan. 18, the rosters of the clubs will really start to take shape.”

U.S. Soccer is subsidizing the salaries of the 23 American players, while the Canadian Soccer Association and the Federation of Mexican Football will each do the same for 16 players.

With 23 U.S. players available for the allocation, all but one of the eight teams received three U.S. Women’s National Team players with the Western New York Flash getting two Americans in Olympic heroes Carli Lloyd and Abby Wambach, who last Monday was named the 2012 FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year.

Following are the team-by-team allocations: