An amateur soccer club founded in New York just five years ago has already risen to the top division of the city’s historic Cosmopolitan Soccer League.
New York International FC (NYIFC) was founded in 2019 by English national Nick Platt and Irish national Gary Philpott and has just reached Division One of the Cosmopolitan Soccer League (CSL) after three promotions in their first five years.
The club’s story is one of tragedy, resilience, diversity, and community spirit, embodying all that is great about sport in New York City.
Platt, who is now head coach of the club’s first team, moved to New York in 2016 and looked to soccer to help assuage the homesickness he had been feeling during the first months of the move.
He said he joined one of the worst amateur clubs in New York but quickly “grew tired of losing”, prompting him to establish NYIFC with Philpott in 2019.
Starting with a “very strong base of international players”, NYIFC joined the lowest tier of the CSL, which was first established in 1923 and is one of the oldest regular soccer leagues in the US.
The CSL, which consists of four divisions made up of amateur and semi-pro teams, offered NYIFC a spot in Division Two, but Platt declined, insisting that the club win at every stage.
And so NYIFC’s journey began in the depths of the CSL, with the club using its time in the lower divisions to grow its brand and attract top players.
Promotion from Division Four and Division Three soon followed, but Division 2 proved a tougher nut to crack.
NYIFC could not continue its rapid rise through the division in its first season in D2 and had to ultimately settle for a fourth-place finish before an agonizing play-off defeat against Manhattan Celtic delayed their promotion dreams in 2023.
However, the club reached the promised land at the third time of asking, clinching promotion with a victory over Williamsburg International back in May.
They are now preparing for a maiden season in “D1” and have already fixed their sights on promotion to the Eastern Premier Soccer League, a recently established soccer league comprising of the best teams in Connecticut, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia.
The club has grown astronomically since 2019 and now boasts over 60 players spread across a first team and a reserve team, with almost 40 nationalities represented. That diversity is one thing that sets NYIFC apart from other amateur and semi-pro clubs in New York.
New York City may be renowned for its diversity, but its amateur soccer scene is not, with clubs typically representing one ethnic or cultural group, such as FC Japan, NY Ukraine, or Yemen United SC.
Founded by six members, it is perhaps unsurprising that NYIFC tapped into the diversity of New York City, with Platt stating that the club started with a “strong base” of international players.
“Although it’s an incredibly diverse city, generally most teams are set in a particular demographic or community,” Platt said. “We’re quite a bit different and we decided to celebrate that diversity and make it part of our club.
“Today, we have nearly 40 different nationalities across our club, which is pretty amazing.”
It has not all been plain sailing for NYIFC, however. In December 2021, barely two years after the club was founded, tragedy struck when club member Davide Giri was murdered in an unprovoked attack near Morningside Park on the Upper West Side. Giri’s murder “rocked the club”, according to current club captain Aaron Forde, who joined NYIFC just months before Giri’s death.
“He was a fantastic player,” Forde said. “A typical Italian defender, rugged, loved to tackle, but he was quiet and unassuming off the field. He was just a gentleman, one of the, one of the sweetest men you’d ever meet.”
Giri has remained “central” to everything the club has done over the past three years, according to Nicholas Alexandrakos, head of community engagement at NYIFC.
The club hosts an annual 5k run in Astoria in honor of Giri, with proceeds going to local charities around the city.
This year’s event took place in June, drawing around 100 runners and raising funds for food poverty charity EV Loves NYC, which NYIFC has supported for several years.
“Davide was an incredible man and he also was very, very community-minded,” Platt said. “It’s a huge privilege to be able to continue to do these sorts of things in his name and with the support and love from his family back in Italy.”
Alexandrakos said the club has partnered with EV Loves NYC because the non-profit represents what the club is “all about”, adding that players regularly help out at EV Loves NYC soup kitchens.
“They (EV Loves NYC) are volunteering their time,” Alexandrakos said. “They’re addressing food insecurity in New York City. They are protecting and uplifting the most vulnerable in the city.”
Community outreach has been an integral part of NYIFC’s story to date, Alexandrakos said, adding that community spirit is “woven into the fabric” of the club.
Platt said one of his main aims was to establish a community-driven club and said all NYIFC teams wear training tops bearing the names of a local New York City charity, which is rotated every two seasons.
“We wanted to be a club that embraced the community and tried to give as much back as we possibly could,” Platt said. “It’s something that we started pretty immediately.”
Forde, who joined NYIFC after moving to New York from Ireland in 2021, said he was instantly impressed by the work the club does with local non-profits.
“I think it’s amazing the work that we’re doing and I really hope that we can continue to do it and continue to sort of be a voice for the community in New York.”
Not only does NYIFC do external work in the community, but it also boasts an incredibly strong internal community that helps international players settle in New York City.
For Forde, the club played a hugely important role in helping him acclimatize to his new home after moving from Ireland.
“It’s become a massive part of my life over here,” Forde said. “You’ve got an absolutely fantastic group of lads, there’s no prima donnas at all. It really helped me sort of fit in and I know that there were other people in the same situation as me.”
Forde has formed such a strong bond with his teammates that several of them are due to attend his wedding in Portugal later in the year.
“I’m getting married in Portugal this year and there’s five lads from the team coming to the wedding. You make great friends here.”
While Major League Soccer, the very top of the North American soccer food chain, remains a closed shop void of the prospects of promotion and relegation, NYIFC and the amateur and semi-pro clubs of the CSL provide a refreshing alternative to a sport that has become increasingly commercialized in recent decades.
For Platt, the concept of promotion and relegation helps to set the CSL apart, adding real jeopardy for teams at the bottom of their respective divisions while providing real incentives for sides in lower leagues.
The CSL, which resembles a structure seen in professional leagues outside the US, has allowed NYIFC to grow as a club in ways that they could not have if they went straight to the top, Platt said.
“If we had immediately started at one of these higher levels, it wouldn’t have given us the time to develop and grow as a club, which we desperately needed,” Platt said. “It’s been a fantastic part of our journey because it’s allowed us to not only develop on the field, but off the field as well. And I feel like it adds so much to the story and the journey if we’re able to grow and step up level by level. It becomes part of the club culture and helps give you something to aim for.”
NYIFC will begin its inaugural season in the top tier of the CSL this month, with games taking place on Randall’s Island.
