The Houston Dynamo will reportedly join the NWSL in 2014.
The Houston Dynamo have been very publicly inching their way toward joining the National Women’s Soccer League, and the formal announcement that they are in for the 2014 season will come Thursday.
As Washington Post soccer writer Steve Goff first reported, the eight NWSL owners approved the move and Houston will formally join the league on Thursday.
The Equalizer’s Dan Lauletta confirms that Houston will pick fifth in the 2014 NWSL College Draft, which is just over a month away on Jan. 17 in Philadelphia. The logic of the No. 5 pick, Goff reports, is to put Houston behind the four teams that missed the playoffs (Washington, Seattle, Chicago and Boston), but after a busy offseason of trades, the top four picks belong to Washington, Chicago, Chicago again and Kansas City, in order.
It is unclear how allocated players will be distributed to Houston.
The deal for Houston to join NWSL has been held up on legal particulars for over a week. Houston’s research process on the NWSL began late in the summer. Click here for full coverage of the ongoing Houston situation.
Dynamo president Chris Canetti told Houston Chronicle writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz that the team sold over 1,000 season tickets in the four-day campaign to gauge interest. Canetti says that only the lower bowl of 7,000 seats will be open for women’s games, along with suites, the party deck and the presidents club.
