The initial meeting that eventually led to the takeover of D.C. United by a motley crew of investors actually happened at last year’s World Cup final in Germany. At a hospitality tent outside Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, MLS Commissioner Don Garber met real estate mogul Victor MacFarlane; they were introduced by United President Kevin Payne, and all were of MacFarlane’s interest in purchasing the club’s operating rights. “My first words to him were, ‘Victor, I want to know you care about this team and this sport,'” Garber said Monday during the news conference that introduced D.C. United Holdings, which bought the club’s operating rights for $33 million from Anschutz Entertainment Group, as the club’s new owner. MacFarlane’s answer at the time: “Commissioner, I do a lot of different deals, and the only one I care about right now is this one right here,” was enough for Garber. D.C. United Holdings includes former Duke basketball stars Christian Laettner and Brian Davis, as well as William Chang, an investor in the San Francisco Giants. The group is also in discussion with John S. Hendricks, founder of Discovery Communications as well as the now-defunct Women’s United Soccer Association; the latter is the only one with a soccer background. It may sound like a motley crew, but Payne is the man who more or less brought the investors-including a few not mentioned above-together. “You could tell Don was impressed and that this had a good chance of happening,” Payne said. D.C. United Holdings now assumes the team’s operating rights, but it doesn’t own the club outright, of course: the league still owns all 13 teams. The group is expected to put up significant money in a possible 27,000-seat stadium at Poplar Point in Anacostia.