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Partnerships in NISA have expanded, and more have popped up over the last couple of months. We've seen Chattanooga partner with Wolfsburg, Flower City Union with Rochester Lancers, and more. Earlier last week, Maryland Bobcats announced a partnership that expands over from the Northeast of the US over to the Merseyside of England. The Bobcats announced a partnership with Marine FC, a club based in Crosby.
So, ISB decided to reach out to the Bobcats, as well as the VP of Marine FC, and we did a Q&A with them on the partnership! (The VP should answer the questions soon, and we'll edit this post with the answers when they come.)
Q&A from Maryland Bobcats (Answers courtesy of Evan Raimist):
Q: How similar do you think Marine and Maryland are?
A: In our conversations with Marine, it became clear just how many similarities there are. From player payment, level of play, goals, but also off the field thins and issues both clubs are facing, what we both want to do better, and our ambitious plans for growth. Both clubs want to be community clubs and both know that soccer (or football) is a way to impact our communities.
Q: Will this partnership include the academy and other youth parts of the club?
A: It's a very broad partnership that covers all aspects of both clubs. The main goal of this partnership, however, is sharing information, knowledge, best practices, and ideas for growth of both clubs. It's really a "meeting of the minds" behind both clubs and knowing that the more information, ideas, and resources both clubs have, the better chance for both of us to continue to grow. This will undoubtedly involve conversations about youth and developing players, but that's not the sole focus.
Q: In the future could we see players be transferred from Maryland to Marine and vise versa?
A: That's certainly possible, sure. Like I said, it's not the main focus for this partnership. We want to share ideas, things that worked, things that didn't work, and learn and grow together. We do play at similar levels, so it could be a natural progression, but that's not the goal off the bat.
Q: Has the partnership been long in planning?
A: It's been in the works for close to a year, but the pandemic obviously shifted both club's priorities. We were introduced, had initial conversations, had some great conversations, and always thought it would be a good fit. We really got more serious the past 3 or 4 months, but it's something that took some time to come together.
Q: How similar is this partnership compared to the others we've seen in NISA?
A: To be honest, I have no idea. Obviously CFC have had a long standing relationship with Wolfsburg and have done some cool things with that (not to mention the women's team they have coming). That's one thing that I think we've tried to do is focus on our club, our players, our staff and do what's best for us and try not to compare to what other people or clubs are doing. Hopefully there's more connections made all over the league because in the long run, it's only going to help the league continue to grow.
Q&A from Marine FC (Courtesy of Club CEO James Leary):
Q: How similar do you think Marine and Maryland are?
A: The reason we have partnered with Bobcats is because we are very similar. We both have ambitions to progress within our own countries and want to do it with community values at heart. I also can relate to Evan, he is doing everything he can to take Bobcats forward.
Q: Will this partnership include the academy and other youth parts of the club?
A: We are going to explore the possibility of moving academy players from and to the US as part of the partnership, we will see how this progresses over the next couple of months.
Q: In the future could we see players be transferred from Maryland to Marine and vise versa?
A: We are both open to it but will look at how circumstances pan out. Q: Has the partnership been long in planning?
A: We have been in talks for a while and it is great that it has come to fruition and we can now start to look to maximize the benefit from the partnership for both parties. Q: How similar is this partnership compared to the others we've seen in English football?
A: I haven't seen any at our level of football, so hopefully we can start a trend if we can achieve what we both want to from it.