The 2000 WUSA Foreign Player Allocation took place on October 30, 2000. It was the first international

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...

held by

Women's United Soccer Association The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first Women's association football, women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000 in sports, 2000, the league began its first se ...

(WUSA) to assign the rights of international players to the eight American-based teams. The 16 players were paired and each team selected one pair.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Draft notes

Each team had already been allocated three

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

players ("founders") on May 24, 2000. The teams then arranged the order for the foreign player allocation between themselves, using a voting system which took account of the previous allocation. The 16 players to be allocated included some of the top players from around the world. Eight of them, including all four Brazilians, had signed for the league the day before the draft. The players were packaged into pairs as part of an effort to help them adapt to life in America. A 15-round main draft, which also included foreign players, followed on December 10–11, 2000. A supplemental college draft on February 4, 2001 completed the process before the inaugural season began in April 2001. In common with

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

, WUSA had a single-entity ownership structure. This meant that the league office owned the players' contracts and negotiated all agreements. Each team got an $800,000

salary cap In professional sports, a salary cap (or wage cap) is an agreement or rule that places a limit on the amount of money that a team can spend on players' salaries. It exists as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster, or both. Sever ...

to cover their final roster of 20 players. ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'' soccer journalist

Grant Wahl Grant Wahl (December 2, 1973 – December 10, 2022) was an American sports journalist and soccer analyst for CBS Sports, a senior writer for ''Sports Illustrated'' and a correspondent for Fox Sports, based in New Yorkers in journalism, New York ...

described Philadelphia's second round pick of Smith and Fitschen ahead of Sissi and Kátia as "a boneheaded move". The slur angered Smith, who later extracted an apology from Wahl.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2000 WUSA Foreign Player Allocation

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

Foreign Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...