Space to play soccer is so scarce in some parts of southern California that a black market has been operating for years that involves the sub-letting of public fields, with thousands of dollars in cash changing hands. Now cities such as Santa Ana plan to clamp down on the abuses after having turned a long-term blind eye to the problem.
“For years, there has been a black market in subletting fields at public parks in soccer-crazy communities like Santa Ana,” reports Tony Barboza. “To feed the crush of teams, league presidents sometimes emerge as strongmen, brokering fields and selling game time to the highest bidder. Oversight is sometimes lax. City officials in Santa Ana, for instance, admit that they looked the other way for years.”
In Santa Ana more than 12,000 registered players compete for playing time on just 29 fields. City Parks Commissioner Ken Nguyen said he was “surprised and disgraced” when he was asked by a Vietnamese league if they could reserve a city field without having to pay another league first. “I was very upset because it’s not right,” said Nguyen. “You cannot profit on a public property.”
Santa Ana has tried to clamp down on the black market by centralizing its field reservation system, “instituting new rules, stepping up enforcement and giving priority to locals, youths and nonprofits. The city has disciplined a handful of leagues for brokering fields, giving them 90-day suspensions.”