South Georgia Tormenta FC to join USL D3 in 2019
January 25, 2018 by Jenny Hojnacki
The USL's third division league starting in 2019 is starting to take shape. The league announced South Georgia Tormenta FC as the first of its founding franchises on Thursday.
"Today's announcement is the culmination of years of hard work from our organization to develop and launch a successful third division built on the principles and foundation that made the USL one of the most prominent second divisions in the world. We are thrilled to welcome South Georgia Tormenta FC into the USL Division III as a founding member and expect the club to continue its success from the PDL," said USL CEO Alec Papadakis.
"This is just the beginning of an exciting period of growth for USL Division III as we expect to unveil more new markets in the coming months and continue to lead the growth of professional soccer in the United States."
Tormenta FC are entering their third season in the PDL and they've been quite successful from a business standpoint. The Statesboro, Georgia based outfit won the league's New Franchise of the Year Award in 2015 and were runners up in the Franchise of the Year Award last season.
Over the summer, they released renderings for a 5,000 seat soccer stadium that would be shared with Georgia Southern University.
Tormenta FC are the first franchise to officially join the new league, which expects to begin play next spring.
Boom goes the dynamite.
BAJ
If USL D3 can be successful in these kind of markets it will be big for US soccer as a whole in terms of discovering new talent that otherwise might never be seen or get a chance to play at a higher level.
Dainja
From the home of Zaxby's!! (Sheds a tear of pride)
The TX 2 Stepper
DainJa, where you from? Not many folks know that fact…
AzTeXan
Love that the stadium is expandable to 10K and sharing the stadium with GSU's men's and women's teams. Preparing for pro/rel under the USL umbrella and building the foundation of the US Soccer pyramid.
Statesboro isn't really S. Georgia…nevertheless I'm glad they have a football team.
Are they clubs or franchises? Papadakis uses the word club but in the article the writer uses the word franchise two times.
Clubs and franchises are different things.