An Australian soccer team is fighting back after a league promotion was nixed because of the threat of a pending lawsuit.
Joondalup United won the State League Championship this season. With the victory, the club was practically guaranteed promotion to the higher-level National Premier League. After conducting tryouts and spending thousands on preparing for the promotion, Joondalup was informed a recently relegated team, Subiaco AFC, was challenging the promotion.
Subiaco threatened legal action over the promotion causing Football West to back off Joondalup altogether. The NPLWA released a statement revealing no teams were to be promoted in 2017. For a club practically guaranteed a spot in the league, it was a sketchy, unfair turn of events.
Joondalup posted the statement from Football West regarding the decision.
Joondalup United isn’t accepting the decision and moving on. Instead, the club launched a petition online in hopes of earning their place in the NPL. So far, the petition has received more than 6,500 of the necessary 7,500 votes. It’s unclear whether the call-to-action will accomplish anything significant, but at the very least, it will demonstrate the club isn’t alone in thinking an injustice has been done against them.
Football West’s decision is baffling. If Joondalup checked all the necessary boxes for promotion, there’s little reason they aren’t in the NPL. Hopefully, the petition makes some noise and helps them land a spot where they belong.
