The Empire Football League
The Empire Football League

The Empire Football League recently conducted an emergency meeting to address leave of absence requests from Watertown, Syracuse and Sussex member teams

After listening to the inputs from each team regarding why they submitted leave of absence requests and subsequently joined other leagues, the following was revealed:

  • It was clear that everyone overreacted due to a media release by Watertown stating they were joining another league
  • Watertown’s premature media release was based on a memo from Seaway Valley attempting to give all EFL members a heads up regarding the number of players they had. This was done in an attempt to squelch social media rumors. Ironically, there was at least one other EFL team in this same situation which was not reported.
  • It was the consensus by EFL member teams that they over reacted to media news reports and social media without first getting the official position from the EFL.
  • Ironically, Seaway Valley’s census is the same now as it was last year at this time; they are a solid organization prepared to have a season.
  • Sussex talked with the WFF to get home games to fill openings created by Plattsburgh’s leave of absence but their commissioner told them that all of the EFL teams had joined the WFF; he even posted this on his website. After hearing this, the Watertown media news report and the WFF misinformation, Sussex decided to join the MLF to protect their schedule.
  • Conclusion: It appears that “fake news” and misinformation drove these 3 teams to make premature decisions regarding their 2017 season schedules without getting all the facts. They acted to mitigate perceived risks to their home game schedules, when no risk existed! 

The Empire Football League has agreed to grant three (3) of its member teams a one year leave of absence. The member teams (including those taking a leave of absence) voted to continue to operate with the two remaining teams (Seaway Valley and Glens Falls) playing an independent schedule including home and away games versus each other, with a championship sanctioned by the EFL and hosted by the team with the best winning percentage on a date to be determined. Consistent with our mission to promote adult amateur football, we felt that this was the right thing to do.

Now in its 48th year of operation, the Empire Football League is still functioning and moving forward with business operations as usual for 2017 and admission of new teams for 2018. 

teams

Powered by Phoenix Internet Services