TAMPA ― Martin Gramatica wanted to create a family atmosphere as head coach of the Tampa Bay Strikers, an expansion team in the fledging National Indoor Soccer League that includes men’s and women’s clubs for each of the five franchises. It was something he learned as the Bucs’ place-kicker under coach Tony Dungy.

“From day one, I told the players we’re going to have to make a lot of changes, and I said we’re going to build a family, we’re going to stick together and eventually we were going to figure it out,” Gramatica said.

After a slow start, both of Gramatica’s teams rallied to win their final two games and qualify for the postseason.

Families don’t deliver bad news over a Zoom call. But that’s what Gramatica was forced to do a couple of days before the playoffs after learning the NISL had abruptly ― and without much explanation ― canceled its postseason tournament scheduled for Mother’s Day. In a brief statement, the league declared the Central Florida Crusaders men and Memphis Americans women league champs by virtue of owning the best regular-season records.

“As far as the end of the season, that story needs to be told,” said Skylar Wilks a captain on the Strikers’ men’s team. “It was not done right by the players, by the fans and by the teams. I’ve never heard of that in all the years of playing. It was unjust for all involved. No press release. No reason.”

The Strikers and NISL were a success on the indoor pitch, creating a fast-paced, 5-on-5 product that more closely resembles hockey than soccer.

But the failure to play a postseason tournament may be the least of the complaints. Some of the NISL’s coaches, including Gramatica, say they have not been paid. Others say they’re aware of players who have not received all their game checks or money from a shared-revenue ticket plan. That’s in addition to tales of brutal road trips, 14-hour bus rides, sleeping at arenas and no pregame meal before one game.

Gramatica applauded his team’s effort and loved coaching the Strikers but said he isn’t committed to returning next season unless commitments are kept, including getting his staff paid.

“What I did tell the league is I don’t want to commit to 2024 until 2023 is closed,” Gramatica said. “That means all my players and my assistant coaches are paid. Once that’s done, then I can talk future.”

A work in progress

Andrew Haines, a founder of the NISL and one of the league’s executive directors, owns a minority share in four of the league’s five teams, including 34 percent of the Strikers. He said the decision to cancel the playoffs hurt the Strikers as much as any franchise.

Haines, 44, disputes some of the complaints by players and coaches but readily admits the NISL still is a work in progress after only two seasons.

“I think we need to do better league-wide,” he said. “I think it’s the lack of front-office staff, and there are certain things we’re working on now to correct. We’ve got a GM that we’ve got penciled in that we’re going to be hiring shortly. But we’ve got to do a better job from a sponsorship and ticket standpoint. Those are two revenue streams primarily.

“This market has huge potential. We had solid attendance. I know that’s not an answer everyone wants to hear.”

Kiley Williams, a captain on the Strikers’ women’s team, saw her season cut short after only four games after suffering a torn ACL and meniscus. But she said even when healthy she’s not inclined to rejoin the league because it didn’t meet its obligations.

“I can tell you there were so many promises made and just not followed through on,” Williams said. “If I speak about this, I technically could be kicked off the team for next year. But do I even want to play next year because of being so disappointed how it was?

“We were supposed to receive commission for any tickets that we sold. I only got one of those paychecks. We signed a contract saying we would receive a certain amount of money for being on the dressed list (those active for games), and a lot of my teammates didn’t have that honored.”

Haines said the ticket revenue share is handled by Spinzo, a group sales platform that pays players their ticket share directly.

“All players have been paid except a few,” Haines said. “The way it works is we have a third party that does that and the only players that haven’t gotten it haven’t provided the information we need. So, the third party is mailing them a check at the end of the month. Everyone else got direct deposit, and it goes right from them to the player and we never see it or touch it. We do it that way so the players can get that more on a regular basis.”

Wilks said while he was paid ticket revenue, there was no way to check discrepancies. “We were just given a link, and at no point were we told how many tickets were sold,” he said. “There was no tracking it. They could’ve paid us for five tickets and we could’ve sold 20. ... We had players who were youth coaches, and their entire team was there.”

Travel chaos

Because players are only paid about $50-$60 per game, nearly all work and some are students and parents. Wilks owns Inspired Fishing Charters. Defender Nico Meola works as the development officer for the Children’s Cancer Center.

The commitment to practice and travel was significant. But the NISL’s arrangements made road games difficult, if not dangerous, according to Gramatica and some of his players.

They were told they were supposed to fly to a game in Memphis, only to be put on a bus for a 14-hour ride.

“You just have to deal with it, but travel was not ideal,” Gramatica said. “I’m OK with a six, seven-hour bus ride and playing a game. But anything more than that, it’s not physically healthy for the players. ... In Memphis, they didn’t order us a pregame meal, so we had to go to a convenience store and dine on bars and bananas. You can’t go into a race car without any fuel.”

An uncooperative bus driver abandoned the team, leaving them to sleep in an arena on the road. “We slept in the arena on a hard carpet, and we had to strong-arm Andrew into unfortunately forcing him to purchase flights,” Meola said. “Initially, he was going to have us rent cars at midnight Sunday and drive cars home through what we saw was to be three tornadoes. Not only was the driving not too feasible, but it wasn’t safe.”

Meola said the team eventually caught a 5 a.m. flight through Miami to Tampa.

Shaky foundation

Meola said he believes the postseason games were canceled because Vinik Sports Group, which operates Yuengling Center on the USF campus in Tampa where the Strikers played their home games, refused to relinquish the playing surface to be used in the playoffs (at Financial Arena on UCF’s campus in Orlando) due to a dispute over payment of their $16,500 per-game fee to rent the arena.

“Initially, we were given the impression that Andrew was the 100-percent owner of the Strikers and come to find out through some of his dialogue, some of the other board of directors of the Strikers couldn’t get on board with funding the money to get the playoff turf back in our possession,” Meola said.

Vinik Sports Group declined to comment through a spokesman about its dealings with the NISL. Haines said securing a playing surface was not an issue.

“I don’t want to get into it with Vinik right now,” he said. “But if we wanted to play a game outside of (Orlando), it wouldn’t have been an issue.”

Sports enthusiasts in central Florida may be familiar with Haines. He was the owner of the Florida Tropics soccer club in the Major Arena Soccer League. In 2016, the Lakeland Ledger reported that Haines faced at least 15 lawsuits in at least four states that ordered him to pay about $600,000. It’s unknown how much of that has been paid. At the time, the paper reported, Haines and his various companies had faced more than $25,000 in state and federal tax liens since 2008.

“I have great respect for the league. ... It’s not to say they couldn’t correct things and right their wrongs, but it’s a really shaky foundation,” Meola said. “It’s hard to me to go out and speak positively and make introductions for Andrew knowing the league could collapse, which it basically did.”

While Gramatica, 47, is uncertain whether he will return to coach the Strikers next season, Haines has big plans that include expanding the NISL by two more teams in 2024. He says the league could do a better job with marketing and ticket sales, but the excitement on the field is undeniable.

“It was the most fun version of soccer I’ve ever played,” Williams said. “It obviously wasn’t your standard game of 11 versus 11. We love that game. It’s fantastic. This was a different style of soccer. It was more fast-paced. We were closer to fans. It was a totally different environment surrounding it.

“This was the most exciting form of soccer that I’ve played since graduating high school. Our team was so close. We got along really well. It was a shame it was run the way it was.”