NWSL Announce Distribution Draft to be Held on March 31st
The National Women’s Soccer League announced that a Distribution Draft will take place this Friday that will provide the distributing right to Distribution-Eligible Individuals to teams in the leagues. The Portland Timbers currently sit at the first spot in the Ranking Order with teams not obligated to make any selections in the draft.
Soccer News: The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) announced a Distribution Draft will be held at 12 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 31. As part of the new NWSL Player Distribution Process, which was announced on Jan. 15 teams will be provided the opportunity to select Distribution-Eligible Individuals.
The NWSL Player Distribution Process provides an equitable mechanism for distributing the rights to Distribution-Eligible Individuals to teams in the league. The complete NWSL Player Distribution Process is available here.
Teams will be provided the opportunity to select Distribution-Eligible Individuals on a rolling basis, in accordance with the Player Distribution Process rules. Any Federation Player whose rights have been relinquished by a Team will become a Distribution-Eligible Individual.
The following Distribution-Eligible Individuals, whose rights were relinquished by their team, will be made available in Thursday’s Distribution Draft: Nkem Ezurike (Canada), Jonelle Filigno (Canada), Monica Ocampo (Mexico), Veronica Perez (Mexico), Ariana Romero (Mexico), Lauren Sesslemann (Canada), Bianca Sierra (Mexico), Melissa Tancredi (Canada), and Rhian Wilkinson (Canada).
The Distribution Ranking Order was determined by the reverse order of finish of the prior NWSL season, taking playoff performance into account. The Portland Thorns FC, who completed a trade on Jan. 15 with the Boston Breakers to move up in the Ranking Order, are currently in the number one spot.
Below is the current Ranking Order:
Distribution Ranking Order:
1. Portland Thorns FC
2. Sky Blue FC
5. Houston Dash
10. Orlando Pride
Teams may choose to not make any selections in the Distribution Draft. They are permitted to trade their Distribution Ranking to another Team during the Distribution Draft. Teams are permitted to select an unlimited number of Distribution-Eligible Individuals.
In the event a Distribution-Eligible Individual is not selected by any Team in the Distribution Draft, the Individual will be immediately eligible to be designated as a Discovery Player by a Team.
The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) is a ten-team Division-I women’s professional soccer league featuring national team players from around the world. The ten clubs are the Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, Houston Dash, FC Kansas City, Orlando Pride, Portland Thorns FC, Seattle Reign FC, Sky Blue FC, Washington Spirit and Western New York Flash.
Based in Chicago, the NWSL is supported by the Canadian Soccer Association, Federation of Mexican Football and the United States Soccer Federation. For more information about the NWSL, log on to the league’s official website here.
Source/Photo Credit: NWSL
