Chelsea plays USA All-Star game
Chelsea Football Club will play the All-Star team of the United States’ Major League Soccer in August 2006. The match is the most high profile fixture of the MLS season and will take place in Chicago on August 5. The match will also be a key part of Chelsea’s pre-season preparation for the 2006/7 campaign.
2006
20
Apr
- Posted at 05:49 PM · Permalink · Print · 4096 views · Last indexed by Google on the 14th May 2008
- Tags: Pre-season
As happy as I am that Chelsea will be coming over to the U.S. more often, their alignment with AEG is bittersweet for me. AEG owns nearly half the MLS and recently took my hometown - and two-time MLS Cup Champion - San Jose Earthquakes to Houston. The reason for AEG wanting to sell the team is valid. San Jose State University was charging outlandish rent for the use of Spartan Stadium - a (American) football stadium built in the 1930s, and the Earthquakes (like every MLS team not owning its own stadium) was bleeding millions. A grass-roots group tried to get San Jose to build a stadium for the Quakes; the nearby city of Santa Clara offered land (and land is hella expensive in California!) for someone to build a stadium on; other colleges offered use of their stadiums until a permanent venue could be constructed… but no. The company known to Northern California as the Anti-Earthquakes Group decided to move the team to Houston, where no potential owner exists and no new stadium exists. They are playing at a college football stadium, just as before.
AEG was showing its corruption early on, as vital cogs of the Earthquakes were offered low-ball contracts, front office management were moved to other AEG-owned franchises (only to return to AEG when that franchise was sold) and a certain American international whose “rights” were owned by San Jose, was “allocated” to AEG-owned Los Angeles when he was bought out from Leverkusen.
With all that history of mismanaging the San Jose franchise, relocating a franchise was the most evil things a parent company can do. Not only do they move players who planted roots in the community, but they have left the second largest market in California without a soccer team.
We all should be glad that AEG doesn’t own Chelsea. I’m sure Mourinho would be coaching Los Angeles; Lamps would be “allocated” to D.C. United; and JT would be defending for Chicago. And where would Chelsea play its home games? Anschutz would find a way to put them in the Millenium Dome, which he also owns.