By Ridge Mahoney
OTHER PEOPLEÆS MONEY: Predictably, mortgage broker Tony Amanpour has withdrawn himself from the ever-shifting San Jose ownership scenario.
His stipulated reason was lack of movement toward a feasible alternative to Spartan Stadium yet several weeks ago he stated a willingness to sign a letter of intent and put up a deposit by which operator-investor Anschutz Entertainment Group would cede additional time — until June 30, 2005 — to find a stadium solution.
Amanpour missed ôdeadlinesö of Oct. 1 and Oct. 29 to provide documents and deposits; by missing those dates he emulated in many ways the league he supposedly wished to join. Delays and denials have been part and parcel of MLS since day one.
But in no way did his resources compare to those of the current operator-investors or even the gullible Ken Horowitz, whose shoe-string Miami Fusion collapsed after four red-stained seasons drained him of nearly $40 million. The first warning signs went up when Amanpour proposed selling shares in the team to a consortium of friends, confidants, and local businessmen.
While itÆs true Amanpour never insisted all or most of the money to purchase and run the team would come from his own pockets, in the end it turned out he had a lot less money to play with than San Jose fans and the grassroots organization Soccer Silicon Valley (SSV) had been led to believe.
His failure to come up with a $2.5 million guarantee that would have funded the team through the 2005 season has much more to do with flimsy finances than it does with phantom facilities.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW: AEG has refused to stipulate if the team will play in San Jose — or anywhere else — next season.
For more than a year AEG has conducted San Jose-ownership discussions with Mexican conglomerate Televisa, which owns Club America, a sworn rival of CD Guadalajara. In the past few months discussions regarding the Quakes and entry into MLS have been held with two other Mexican clubs, UNAM Pumas and Monterrey-based Tigres, according to non-MLS sources.
A Mexican takeover would take the team to Texas. San Jose general manager Alexi Lalas was in San Antonio several weeks ago and the mayor of that city, Ed Garza, has been working hard to find a ownership group and a stadium site to be used following a few seasons playing in the Alamodome. The league greatly covets putting a team in Houston, which draws among the highest TV ratings for league matches among non-MLS cities.
Houston and San Antonio have hosted the Mexican national team in the past two years and both will also host Interliga games in January. Yet if the intent of Club America is to compete with CD Chivas USA in the American market, Televisa might prefer to start from scratch with an expansion team and thus wait until 2006 or later to join MLS.
Quakes staff members are supposed to be notified early next week as to the teamÆs future. A Club Quakes end-of-season function is scheduled for Nov. 20
A sale or folding the team remains a possibility. In light of Guadalajara owner Jorge VergaraÆs initial proclamation that his MLS team would start play in 2004, last year the league made contingency plans for an 11-team season. Those plans could resurface if AEG folds San Jose.
However, a source said a likely scenario for next season, barring a last-minute deal to sell or share operating rights to the club, is AEG agreeing to another season in San Jose as it and SSV search for investors and/or potential buyers as well as a stadium.
Landon Donovan is in Germany to finalize a move to Bayer Leverkusen. The German club is poised to terminate the sharing arrangement with MLS and add him to its playing roster. The MLS competition committee would have to decide on the value of an allocation granted to the Quakes as compensation for losing Donovan.