Chances Dwindling For WPS Team In San Diego As Plan Unravels
The chances for a Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) franchise in San Diego are "still alive but rudderless and uncertain," according to Mark Zeigler of the SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE. San Diego-based soccer coach Platini Soaf has been "trying to assemble the money people" for a franchise and "had identified two [L.A.]-based investors who were seeking ownership partners in San Diego." A local group also had "formed with a reported $1[M] of seed money." Soaf: "We were very close. We thought it was going to happen. Then it just totally shut down." Soaf added that the primary issue was "how much money the L.A. investors would put up and how much ownership control they'd retain." Members of the San Diego group have declined comment, and the names of the L.A.-based investors "were never made public." Soaf said that when the two sides "couldn't come to terms," the deal "unraveled barely a week before" a September 1 deadline. WPS instead "will allocate U.S. national team players to seven teams next week, although not the same seven initially unveiled," as the league "recently announced that San Jose had joined for the 2009 season and that Dallas would wait until 2010 while it sorts out stadium issues." Atlanta and Philadelphia also plan to join in 2010. Zeigler writes of San Diego's chances, "Maybe 2010, maybe later, maybe never." No one "currently holds the rights to the San Diego market," and Soaf said that the L.A. and San Diego groups are "moving forward independently" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 9/10).
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