SOCCER AMERICA: NY COSMOS are in a complete fiasco

I don't care who the ownership group is, so long as they're one MLS feels financially comfortable with and they make a decent effort to buy the Cosmos branding.

 

STill a lot of twists and turns to go - this explains a lot though.

It seems though that the issue is not financing - it was rifts with the owners.

Look - the front office was half soccer guys and half marketing guys - sooner or later those guys were going to but heads but who would have thought it would get this bad

I think Terry Byrne and Joe Fraga keep their roles.

 

While I am concerned, this is not "the latest news". This is an opinion piece by the notoriously anti-British Paul Gardner.

 

Few interesting tidbits in there that are fact. Opinion yes but the first real item of what the feck is going on in that front office.

 

Question: Was that Chuck Blazer stuff just a joke? Because it sounds absolutely ridiculous and Blazer certainly doesn't have the money for it (despite how much he's probably leeched out of FIFA the past so many years). However given the almost soap opera-esque amount of twists and turns this NYC#2 saga has contained I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

I have no clue how Gardner extrapolated the Cosmos' current failings from being British though, if anyone knows how to sell soccer it's the British and they had a large impact on NASL aswell.

 

The question isn't whether Blazer has the money, the question is whether Blazer can put the finance team together to raise the money. He certainly has access to people and entities with real money.

 

Crazy isn't it? Paul Gardner born 1930 in Ramsgate, England and who has written articles for English publications like The Village Voice, The Times (London), The Guardian (London) and The Independent (London) is anti-British.....

 

Still an opinion piece though.

 

Don't know if you're being ironic, but Metrogo is right to characterize Gardner as anti-British, insofar as England and Scotland (and Wales and even Northern Ireland) don't play much of the technical, possession soccer that Gardner prefers. That's why you see all of his "Latin game" claptrap.

 

No I'm not really trying to be. I know that he prefers the Latin style. He has ever since he was writing for Soccer Corner magazine in the late 70's & early 80's. Still being British and from England, you would think he would be a little more sympathetic to English soccer and their players as a rule but he just doesn't like the English game.

As far as the Cosmos returning, I really hope they do as I worshiped them as a kid. The way PG made it sound though, they really don't seem all that close to coming back.

 

+1.

 

When FCNY was announced - I was at the presser and he was roasting these guys. He killed Doug Peterson for calling it football, he asked if he was ashamed of the US word Soccer.

Then he roasted them for calling out RB when they were planning to play in Hofstra, and rightfully so.


He is rough but when he does roast something, he has his reasons and a lot of times I can agree with him.

 

Honestly Falvo, I'm not all that surprised that he feels the way he feels even though he's English. The English particularly (I can't really say with the other countries) are incredibly myopic. It's like they don't know and don't care that football is being played somewhere else. I hate when they use the word "revelation", as, for example, "Carlos Tevez has been a revelation at West Ham". Uhmmm, no, his talents were long known and recognized, just because it happened in Argentina and Brazil doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Any Englishman who spends a little time following football outside "jolly ol'" would come to realize just how insulated the fans and the instiutions are in England.

 

If Gardner is right, PK is out?

If true, that could be the best thing for the Cosmos, IMHO. Even before Gardner's opinion piece, it was readily apparent that Garber had soured on PK as a member of the MLS ownership group. Getting PK out of the picture could get the Cosmos back to the MLS table, or, at least, make the sale of the brand to the ownership group that is awarded NY2. So, perhaps the turmoil currently going on could be a good thing in the end.

 

I was on a conference call once with Garber and basically every respected journalist and soccer writer in America ... and all he did was rant and rave in his stupid limey accent (which is not like my highly awesome limey accent) about everything that we were doing wrong because it wasn't like Latin American football and like English football ... I genuilely think he has a screw loose somewhere, it was seriously embarrassing hearing him groaning no matter what Garber said ...

He is like a mad old dog barking at people in between licking his balls and eating his own shit.

 

Garber or Gardner?

 

Both .... Gardner being the mad dog.

 

That's true to a degree in the past but it's changing. In the 1990s Italian football was very popular in the UK and these days it's Spanish football. El Classico gets as much media coverage on Sky Sports as top 4 clashes in the EPL these days. Saying that it's certainly true in regards to MLS, views have changed somewhat since Beckham and then Henry came to the states, but there's still this stupid view that it's at League Two standard and that much of the frivolities of MLS 1.0, crazy kits, penalty shootout, americanisms etc still exist when they've long been abandoned. There's also an increasing respect for the USMNT and not just because of the World Cup result.

 

Was that the call where they made them shut his microphone off?

 

I think it's generally true of the new world, not just MLS. Thanks for the civil response to my not terribly civil post. And here's an American smiley emoticon just for you!

 

Yeah, let me put it this way: Chuck Blazer is probably as rich as Dave Checketts is. But Dave Checketts actually represents a group of investors that have much more money.

 

Exactly. But you and I know the difference. Dave Checketts is an effective person with a serious track record of running organizations effectively. Chuck Blazer is a blowhard at best and corrupt soccer politician at worst who has proven very little.

 

The most well rounded individual in that ownership group is Curtis Martin

 

Clearly you haven't seen Blazer.. He is quite round.