Guys without dicks seem to make "jokes" like the one above often. Latest from MLS on Chivas USA - courtesy of la times: There has been widespread speculation that any Mexican-owned team, especially Chivas USA, would be granted exemptions from MLS rules limiting the number of foreign players on a team's roster. Chivas of Guadalajara has never fielded a non-Mexican player. But Garber said that decades-old tradition would not extend to Vergara's newest club. "Chivas USA will be playing in Major League Soccer in 2005 and they will be playing under the same rules as every other team in MLS," he said.
There's a vast supply of first generation Mexican-Americans in the U.S. for Chivas to choose from. I don't think they will need to cross the border to get the talent they seek. 3 SI spots ought to do it for them for the veteran talent. Personally I think it sounds like a great rivalry in MLS. I just wish that Vergara would hurry up and choose a locale so his venture will appear legit and not just another MLS announcement that jumps the gun.
The thing that you just don't seem to get is that this is divisive. All you lefties want to hold hands, sing "Kumbaya" and preach to the ignorant masses about peace, brotherhood and tearing down the barriers that separate us. The you want to put together a traveling team of little brown people who don't speak our language and bring them to play Eurocentric teams in front of crowds of young men who you're serving beer to. The hope, apparently, is that young Mexican men will come to, say, Columbus Crew stadium or Foxboro or wherever to watch this traveling circus, thus selling, a couple times a year, some extra tickets. So they come, they cheer for the players who look like them, and they leave. Has this made them MLS fans? Has this helped the Crew or the Revs in the long term? And what happens when a few bad calls go against one side or the other and somebody who has had too much to drink starts making ill-considered remarks? Now, when there's a fight between some Crew fans and some Fiire fans, the press really doesn't care. But I bet they'll suddenly care a LOT when they can call it "racial tension" and where does this end? Last time I looked, there were damned few black people at MLS games. So do we start an all Black team too? And now that LA has that Korean guy, a small contingent of Koreans always shows up. Do we start an Asian team? How about the Poles? South Americans? Please, I wish that some of you would stop lecturing everyone else about how MLS "needs" more Mexican fans, or how MLS has "failed" to attract them or even not bothered to "reach out" to them. They didn't reach out to ANY hard-core soccer fans. It wasn't just the Hispanics they took for granted - they took ALL of us for granted. The bigger question you geniuses ought to be considering is why ManU can draw 60,000 people in the US but the Metros can't draw 15,000. And then tell me how setting up a permanent racial divide in the league, where we cheer for a team based on their racial or ethnic background is anything other than divisive insanity and a recipe for disaster.
True. A few Mexicans will come to our parking lots once or twice a year, set up shop, cheer "their" team and leave. Other than that, they probably won't give two rat's asses about MLS while they continue to live in Columbus, Dallas, Chicago, etc. Remember all those Koreans that came for our opener? I bet anything they didn't care either way about MLS other than the fact that Hong played in Columbus. I think in the end, Crew - Chivas will be a lot like Crew - Wizards or Crew - Dallas. They're out there, we play them a few times a year, but other than that we couldn't give two craps about them. I'll be more concerned (and focus more of my energy) about competing against Cleveland than Chivas.
Don Garber on Chivas USA: We’re still working with Mr. Vergara on finalizing his market, but I will confirm for all of you here today and on the phone, that Chivas USA will begin playing in Major League Soccer in 2005, and that they will be playing under the same rules as every other team in Major League Soccer. “It’s not a Mexican expansion team but an expansion team owned by a Mexican man. It’s an MLS expansion team … http://mlsnet.com/special/mlscup/2003/mlscup1121quotes.html
But since "they'll follow all the rules" is not the same as "we're not gonna bring in anyone except ethnically Mexican, Spanish speaking players", as is clearly their intent, then that's largely bull, Peter. You need to consider: The whole POINT of having "Chivas USA" is to put a team of ethnics on the pitch. And MLS isn't planning on attracting more Hispanic fans by having a team called "Chivas USA" made up of white American college boys. It would accomplish nothing, and Vergara wouldn't be interested. Vergera sees this as an opportunity too - MLS isn't using him, he's using them. It's business, and that's OK. Alls fair. But don't blind yourself to what he's doing: as Telefutura and Univision have proved, there's big money in selling Mexican soccer to young Hispanic men in the US. They buy beer, and pickup trucks and Big Macs just like everybody else. They have disposable income and Vergara intends to get some of it. And he intends to do it by a strategy marketers call "brand extension". He's selling a Mexican product to Mexicans.