((HT: Gulf Coast Armada))
Abram Chamberlain, the leader of the Pensacola City FC Supporter's Group- the Gulf Coast Armada- has put together a half-hour on the situation involving the dissolving of Pensacola City FC.
He analyzes the owner's approach to having a franchise and its marketing for the 2014 season (or a lack thereof), interviews (now) former players about living conditions and their individual situations, asks legitimate questions around the operation of a franchise- regardless of professional level, and has a noble goal for the future...
It's worth a look...
We'll be asking Chamberlain some questions as we go forward in week 2 and beyond...
Showing posts with label Remy Moulard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remy Moulard. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
DEVELOPING: NPSL Pensacola City FC's Joe-Tyla Butcher Responds To New Owner Statements
Earlier today, OSG Sports reached out to Pensacola City FC's former players to gauge their response to the new questions put forth to the team owner, Bill Fetke.
Defender Joe-Tyla Butcher came forward with his response to the new statements:
The fact that Bill is still maintaining that the players were drunk before the Chattanooga game is ridiculous, I can vouch for the players that none were out drinking the night before that game. I know for a fact all the boys at the fountains were asleep by 11 that night and most definitely didn't drink or go out and that vouches for about half the team. And the fact that Bill is saying we all played very poorly in a 1-0 defeat to the best side in the league is ridiculous, the coaches asked the players to play two, some even three (if involved in the reserve game which 13 players on our roster were) 90 minute games, one at 4 and 7 on Saturday and the second at 1 on Sunday, less than 24 hours apart, the third game being played in mid day heat at 95 degrees. On top of that the coaches only made one change to the starting line-up for Sunday, meaning 10 players were playing in both games or some even 3 games, 4 players went down with cramp in that game which only shows you that the demand on the players to play two 90 minutes in that heat in such quick succession just isn't realistic. Especially when you are playing the best side in the league who are going to dominate possession against most teams they play. Another decision which has to question the footballing knowledge of the coaches if im honest.
Its funny that he uses the Chattanooga game as an example because we only lost 1-0, to a very good side who honestly deserved to beat us on the day and we played a game the night before. Knoxville lost 4-0 last night to Chattanooga after not playing for days and being fresh, so I think if you compare the two we really didn't do that badly. Especially with the depth that Chattanooga have on their roster compared to other teams in the league.
And i'd just like to say that the players aren't not kicking other players out the apartments, but obviously if you stay in the apartments into June, then you come liable and responsible to contribute to the rent and utilities, which due to all us training and playing everyday in may and not working just isn't realistic. So he is indirectly evicting players by not paying the rents which he committed to pay, Bill's not a stupid guy, he obviously kicked us out on May 28th so that he wasn't liable to support the players for another month. Luckily enough for me I have managed to sort out other arrangements and I am not stuck in Pensacola but I know that some of the boys are still stuck there, and i'd like to say that the Armada (the fan group) are doing a great job trying to help out the players still in Pensacola. Bill can try and switch the blame onto the players, but everyone involved with the club knows what really went on and regardless of his reasons he left the players with very little options or time to figure anything out. You can see he is embarrassed from the fact that he deleted everyone on Facebook and deleted the teams profiles, probably to avoid any more questions or abuse from players or outsiders observing the situation. If he felt he was in the right, then why would he have done that?
OSG Sports also reached out to midfielder Remy Moulard- Moulard is waiting for his appointment with a specialist to finally know about the extent of his injury. Also quoting:
But if Mr. Fetke told me all my medical bills will be covered (included physio), the housing and food are not even [included] If I can't move
Players are still looking for new homes to play and ways home if they're not playing in the league.
More when we know more...
Defender Joe-Tyla Butcher came forward with his response to the new statements:
The fact that Bill is still maintaining that the players were drunk before the Chattanooga game is ridiculous, I can vouch for the players that none were out drinking the night before that game. I know for a fact all the boys at the fountains were asleep by 11 that night and most definitely didn't drink or go out and that vouches for about half the team. And the fact that Bill is saying we all played very poorly in a 1-0 defeat to the best side in the league is ridiculous, the coaches asked the players to play two, some even three (if involved in the reserve game which 13 players on our roster were) 90 minute games, one at 4 and 7 on Saturday and the second at 1 on Sunday, less than 24 hours apart, the third game being played in mid day heat at 95 degrees. On top of that the coaches only made one change to the starting line-up for Sunday, meaning 10 players were playing in both games or some even 3 games, 4 players went down with cramp in that game which only shows you that the demand on the players to play two 90 minutes in that heat in such quick succession just isn't realistic. Especially when you are playing the best side in the league who are going to dominate possession against most teams they play. Another decision which has to question the footballing knowledge of the coaches if im honest.
Its funny that he uses the Chattanooga game as an example because we only lost 1-0, to a very good side who honestly deserved to beat us on the day and we played a game the night before. Knoxville lost 4-0 last night to Chattanooga after not playing for days and being fresh, so I think if you compare the two we really didn't do that badly. Especially with the depth that Chattanooga have on their roster compared to other teams in the league.
And i'd just like to say that the players aren't not kicking other players out the apartments, but obviously if you stay in the apartments into June, then you come liable and responsible to contribute to the rent and utilities, which due to all us training and playing everyday in may and not working just isn't realistic. So he is indirectly evicting players by not paying the rents which he committed to pay, Bill's not a stupid guy, he obviously kicked us out on May 28th so that he wasn't liable to support the players for another month. Luckily enough for me I have managed to sort out other arrangements and I am not stuck in Pensacola but I know that some of the boys are still stuck there, and i'd like to say that the Armada (the fan group) are doing a great job trying to help out the players still in Pensacola. Bill can try and switch the blame onto the players, but everyone involved with the club knows what really went on and regardless of his reasons he left the players with very little options or time to figure anything out. You can see he is embarrassed from the fact that he deleted everyone on Facebook and deleted the teams profiles, probably to avoid any more questions or abuse from players or outsiders observing the situation. If he felt he was in the right, then why would he have done that?
OSG Sports also reached out to midfielder Remy Moulard- Moulard is waiting for his appointment with a specialist to finally know about the extent of his injury. Also quoting:
But if Mr. Fetke told me all my medical bills will be covered (included physio), the housing and food are not even [included] If I can't move
Players are still looking for new homes to play and ways home if they're not playing in the league.
More when we know more...
DEVELOPING: Pensacola City FC Owner Answers More Questions, Stands By Hangover Claim
Week two in the whole Pensacola City FC saga is now underway, and PCFC owner Bill Fetke is still standing by claims he made about his roster last week to OSG Sports.
We submitted another series of questions to him about last week as the saga moves forward and here are his reponses:
First, OSG Sports asked about the conversations Mr. Fetke had with the league office:
Everyone in the conference was really trying to save the season. Of course, they have been in panic mode because
they are losing a home match. My conversation with the league was the same. I really feel bad for the other clubs. They are all awesome owners and their fans deserve nothing but the best. Long term, it is best that this happened. I hope this puts a little concern into the league about how to prevent this in the future and better vetting future owners so there will be less "one and done" teams.
OSG Sports previously reported that midfielder Remy Moulard would be needing an MRI and that PCFC would take care of that, but go no further in paying any kind of bills.
the insurance said it takes 2 weeks to get a claim number. Remy Moulard needed an air cast for his ankle so I purchased it for him.
Do season ticket holders get their money back?
i am in the process of getting all tickets reimbursed for the New Orleans match and all the season tickets.
And he stands by the assessment that players were "hung over" after the match with Knoxville when they showed up to practice the next day.
I have validation from two of the players that many went out after the Knoxville match. I truly hope they were hungover based of the performance of most during that match vs Chattanooga. Still, the heat index was pushing 100 that weekend, and alcohol or lack of sleep could have been a serious health risk. They need to take better care of themselves and be aware of their situation. They are all adults but are still acting like kids, taking no responsibility for their own actions.
Then, OSG Sports wanted to clarify the living arrangements and the billeting of players for the 2014 season since players ceased being PCFC players and were having to look for their next homes come June 1st in a lot of situations.
the set up of the living situation was that I asked a couple of the local players if they had extra room. Based on how many people they could house depended on how much I reimbursed them for. The verbal agreement was "as long as we were playing, I would be paying". I was asked in our termination meeting about the players and I told them that they needed to work out an agreement with who they were staying with. True, I was paying the rent, but I never told anyone to kick out the players that were staying with them. That has nothing to do with me. If anyone was kicked out immediately, then it was the local players who have the apartments who voluntarily kicked their teammates out.
The previous stories on Pensacola City FC and their dissolving are hyah, hyah, hyah , hyah, and hyah
It encompasses the entire first week of the workings among the players, the Gulf Coast Armada supporter's group, the team, and the league. OSG Sports has put in a request that the players who told Fetke about being "hung over" for that post-match practice be vetted by us as well.
More when we know more...
We submitted another series of questions to him about last week as the saga moves forward and here are his reponses:
First, OSG Sports asked about the conversations Mr. Fetke had with the league office:
Everyone in the conference was really trying to save the season. Of course, they have been in panic mode because
OSG Sports previously reported that midfielder Remy Moulard would be needing an MRI and that PCFC would take care of that, but go no further in paying any kind of bills.
the insurance said it takes 2 weeks to get a claim number. Remy Moulard needed an air cast for his ankle so I purchased it for him.
Do season ticket holders get their money back?
i am in the process of getting all tickets reimbursed for the New Orleans match and all the season tickets.
And he stands by the assessment that players were "hung over" after the match with Knoxville when they showed up to practice the next day.
I have validation from two of the players that many went out after the Knoxville match. I truly hope they were hungover based of the performance of most during that match vs Chattanooga. Still, the heat index was pushing 100 that weekend, and alcohol or lack of sleep could have been a serious health risk. They need to take better care of themselves and be aware of their situation. They are all adults but are still acting like kids, taking no responsibility for their own actions.
Then, OSG Sports wanted to clarify the living arrangements and the billeting of players for the 2014 season since players ceased being PCFC players and were having to look for their next homes come June 1st in a lot of situations.
the set up of the living situation was that I asked a couple of the local players if they had extra room. Based on how many people they could house depended on how much I reimbursed them for. The verbal agreement was "as long as we were playing, I would be paying". I was asked in our termination meeting about the players and I told them that they needed to work out an agreement with who they were staying with. True, I was paying the rent, but I never told anyone to kick out the players that were staying with them. That has nothing to do with me. If anyone was kicked out immediately, then it was the local players who have the apartments who voluntarily kicked their teammates out.
The previous stories on Pensacola City FC and their dissolving are hyah, hyah, hyah , hyah, and hyah
It encompasses the entire first week of the workings among the players, the Gulf Coast Armada supporter's group, the team, and the league. OSG Sports has put in a request that the players who told Fetke about being "hung over" for that post-match practice be vetted by us as well.
More when we know more...
Friday, May 30, 2014
DEVELOPING: NPSL Pensacola City FC Reax- Alvaro Pichardo
OSG Sports has received an e-mail from Pensacola City FC midfielder Alvaro Pichardo about what has happened over the last 36 hours...
This is his first-person account as to what he experienced in the folding of the franchise...
It is a stream-of-consciousness review and OSG Sports left punctuation alone...
It is heart-breaking, head-scratching and leaves a lot of questions still...
Well, we received an email from Bill at 9:10 Wednesday night that said we had a meeting the next day (Thursday) at 1:00 pm because he was doing an equipment check. (who does equipment checks at this level, why would you need to check our equipment if there hasn't been a problem with us wearing the wrong gear or anything? at this point we started talking as a team about what we thought would happen and some of us came up with the thoughts that the team was folding because we hadn't trained on Wednesday, 2 days before a game, and we hadn't discussed the traveling plans for Thursday afternoon to travel to Georgia for the game.
Anyway... we get there and Bill takes our equipment, when he is finished "checking" our equipment he gives us this lecture of how we are workers and just like any business if you don't do your job you can get fired, he even goes to say that he heard that some of the guys had gone out to drink the night before the Chattanooga game, which i know for a fact that no one went out, we finished the game and everyone went home because we had a game the next day at 1. then he says that we played like "shit" against CFC because we were hungover... i have 2 things to say about that, 1st we didnt play like shit, we lost 1-0 against the best team in the conference, a team that is competing in the US Open Cup and is one of the best in the NPSL year after year with almost the exact same line up from the night before in 90 degree weather with a team that has almost no organization due to the fact that we have had 0 tactical sessions all year and don't know how to defend and play as a team, this goes to tell you that we worked our asses off for Bill and we only lost 1-0... 2nd no one had any alcohol in them. we lost because they were the better team.
Bill also added that him and his business partners decided that it was not worth spending so much money when the public was not reacting and supporting us, this is normal in sports, you dont make a team and 2 years later start making money, this is normal in any business, it takes years to start making money first you invest, then you start breaking even and then you make a profit... this is what i think actually happened, Bill doesnt really have a good idea on how to run a sports team.
At first I didn't want to say anything because I had a good relationship with Bill, he had been really nice to me last year and even this year but it really bothers me that he has blamed us for terminating the team, this is not our fault, you do not expect us to win every game when the set up has been an absolute joke, from having no goals for the first few days to doing the same thing every single day at training without any intensity and not working tactically, soccer is not a sport that you just go out there and kick a ball around, you have to be organized and run a system, which we didn't do... we pretty much were just thrown out there to kick the ball around. If anything, Bill should be happy that we worked hard in the games and didn't lose by more with such a disorganized and unprofessional environment around us...
Also, I'm not too happy about how he is treating the injured players, Remy (Moulard) hurt in ankle and had to be taking the hospital about a week ago and he has yet to have an MRI, I wonder how Bill would feel if this happened to his son and the owner of the team simply didn't care about his health. I dont think he has realized how much we gave up to come play for him and how much we have lost now that he terminated the team. Remy is injured and has nowhere to go but he doesnt care about this, he is probably gonna have to sit out his next college season due to this injury and this could affect him to reach his goal of becoming a professional soccer player but evidently Bill could care less... I had other options before coming here, PDL other NPSL team and I even passed up on playing with my countries national team because i was promised a professional environment and a very organized team with MLS and USL coaches coming to watch us (which never happened)...
He also said "i have no control of where they lived, they stayed with local players. so local players are the ones who kicked out their teammates" this has really pissed me off that he would lie like this, he had control of where we lived, yes we stayed with local players but those local players live in apartments which require you to pay rent obviously, and guess who agreed to pay that rent... Mr. Bill Fetke himself, so now that we have 2 days till rent is due, what are we supposed to do? No one has enough money to afford rent because we have not been working, because of the fact that Bill promised us food and housing.
Yes he has folded the team and there is nothing we can do now but the least he can do is keep his promise to pay for our rents, at least for 1 more month to give us time to find another team and he could pay for the injured players' medical bills. Just like in any business if you get injured while working, the employer has to pay for medical bills but it seems like he forgot about this or maybe he is just a cold person that doesn't care about the well being of others.
More reaction will be posted as we receive it and OSG Sports also has another question into NPSL Commissioner Michael Hitchcock about how the folding of the franchise relates to the rest of the schedule going forward...
This is his first-person account as to what he experienced in the folding of the franchise...
It is a stream-of-consciousness review and OSG Sports left punctuation alone...
It is heart-breaking, head-scratching and leaves a lot of questions still...
Well, we received an email from Bill at 9:10 Wednesday night that said we had a meeting the next day (Thursday) at 1:00 pm because he was doing an equipment check. (who does equipment checks at this level, why would you need to check our equipment if there hasn't been a problem with us wearing the wrong gear or anything? at this point we started talking as a team about what we thought would happen and some of us came up with the thoughts that the team was folding because we hadn't trained on Wednesday, 2 days before a game, and we hadn't discussed the traveling plans for Thursday afternoon to travel to Georgia for the game.
Anyway... we get there and Bill takes our equipment, when he is finished "checking" our equipment he gives us this lecture of how we are workers and just like any business if you don't do your job you can get fired, he even goes to say that he heard that some of the guys had gone out to drink the night before the Chattanooga game, which i know for a fact that no one went out, we finished the game and everyone went home because we had a game the next day at 1. then he says that we played like "shit" against CFC because we were hungover... i have 2 things to say about that, 1st we didnt play like shit, we lost 1-0 against the best team in the conference, a team that is competing in the US Open Cup and is one of the best in the NPSL year after year with almost the exact same line up from the night before in 90 degree weather with a team that has almost no organization due to the fact that we have had 0 tactical sessions all year and don't know how to defend and play as a team, this goes to tell you that we worked our asses off for Bill and we only lost 1-0... 2nd no one had any alcohol in them. we lost because they were the better team.
Bill also added that him and his business partners decided that it was not worth spending so much money when the public was not reacting and supporting us, this is normal in sports, you dont make a team and 2 years later start making money, this is normal in any business, it takes years to start making money first you invest, then you start breaking even and then you make a profit... this is what i think actually happened, Bill doesnt really have a good idea on how to run a sports team.
At first I didn't want to say anything because I had a good relationship with Bill, he had been really nice to me last year and even this year but it really bothers me that he has blamed us for terminating the team, this is not our fault, you do not expect us to win every game when the set up has been an absolute joke, from having no goals for the first few days to doing the same thing every single day at training without any intensity and not working tactically, soccer is not a sport that you just go out there and kick a ball around, you have to be organized and run a system, which we didn't do... we pretty much were just thrown out there to kick the ball around. If anything, Bill should be happy that we worked hard in the games and didn't lose by more with such a disorganized and unprofessional environment around us...
Also, I'm not too happy about how he is treating the injured players, Remy (Moulard) hurt in ankle and had to be taking the hospital about a week ago and he has yet to have an MRI, I wonder how Bill would feel if this happened to his son and the owner of the team simply didn't care about his health. I dont think he has realized how much we gave up to come play for him and how much we have lost now that he terminated the team. Remy is injured and has nowhere to go but he doesnt care about this, he is probably gonna have to sit out his next college season due to this injury and this could affect him to reach his goal of becoming a professional soccer player but evidently Bill could care less... I had other options before coming here, PDL other NPSL team and I even passed up on playing with my countries national team because i was promised a professional environment and a very organized team with MLS and USL coaches coming to watch us (which never happened)...
He also said "i have no control of where they lived, they stayed with local players. so local players are the ones who kicked out their teammates" this has really pissed me off that he would lie like this, he had control of where we lived, yes we stayed with local players but those local players live in apartments which require you to pay rent obviously, and guess who agreed to pay that rent... Mr. Bill Fetke himself, so now that we have 2 days till rent is due, what are we supposed to do? No one has enough money to afford rent because we have not been working, because of the fact that Bill promised us food and housing.
Yes he has folded the team and there is nothing we can do now but the least he can do is keep his promise to pay for our rents, at least for 1 more month to give us time to find another team and he could pay for the injured players' medical bills. Just like in any business if you get injured while working, the employer has to pay for medical bills but it seems like he forgot about this or maybe he is just a cold person that doesn't care about the well being of others.
More reaction will be posted as we receive it and OSG Sports also has another question into NPSL Commissioner Michael Hitchcock about how the folding of the franchise relates to the rest of the schedule going forward...
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