MLS teams' floats at USWNT parade to honor women's youth soccer
Major League Soccer will have multiple floats in the U.S. women’s national team’s World Cup victory parade in New York on Friday in order to honor women's youth soccer in the New York area, according to a report from Red Bulls' blog Once A Metro.
MLS, New York City FC and the New York Red Bulls will reportedly each have their own floats in the parade, despite MLS and its teams having no direct affiliation with the U.S. women's national team.
The National Women's Soccer League and its New Jersey-based club, Sky Blue FC, will also have floats.
The North American Soccer League—a men's league—and its local team, the New York Cosmos, will not be participating in the parade. NASL was not invited by U.S. Soccer, and the Cosmos reportedly declined their invitation out of respect for the USWNT's celebration.
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More, from the Once A Metro report:
“In our grassroots program we target and coach players from 5 to 14 years old, 50 percent of our programs are made up of young girls. Our RDS is a pre-academy program and we have about 3,000 players and half of them are made up of young ladies,” Ferrell said to Once a Metro.
“We really push [our young girls] to become elite players. We teach them to recognize college atmospheres and push to also play professionally whether for local teams here or nationally.”
According to the team, four of those RDS girls will feature on the float, along with Anna Rose, a local Special Olympics goaltender. Ferrell and Brady will also ride on the float, to honor the work they've done to promote women's soccer in the area.
The event is expected to cost the city $1.5 million. MLS is among additional private sponsors, which are contributing $450,000, according to the New York Times.
The parade will be New York City's first in 30 years to celebrate athletes not based in New York and its first ever to honor a female team. The last parade honoring individual female athletes followed the 1984 Olympics.
The parade through the Canyon of Heroes—where all New York's celebratory ticker-tape parades have traditionally been held—in downtown Manhattan will begin in Battery Park at 11 a.m. ET on Friday and travel down Broadway to City Hall.
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- Erin Flynn
