The club that brought Pelé and Raúl to America have shed their staff and players. So why does their chairman insist the team has a future?

There are few American soccer brands that rival the global resonance of the New York Cosmos. The name alone conjures images of Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia trouncing opponents in packed stadiums across America.

They were the rebels. The pioneers. The original galácticos. In short, the Cosmos are one of the most romantic and important clubs in the history of American soccer. And for the second time in a generation, they are teetering on the brink of extinction.

The modern-day Cosmos, who returned to the professional soccer scene in 2013 after 28 years in hibernation, have one foot back in obscurity. They currently compete in the North American Soccer League, the second division in the US soccer pyramid. Since their return, they have won three league titles, three seasonal titles and have been a perennial threat in the country’s oldest enduring soccer tournament, the US Open Cup.

That on-field success, along with the lofty weight of their historical name, has propelled the club to feats that would ordinarily escape a second-division American side. The team has participated in big-money tournaments worldwide, acquired top-tier talent such as Raúl, and even made history as the first professional American sports team to compete in Cuba following the United States’ embargo rollback.

But the team’s sporting success masked a much bigger issue behind the scenes. Despite the team’s on-field achievements, the Cosmos have been plagued by mismanagement, dwindling attendance and practical irrelevance in the New York market.

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The Cosmos have struggled to break through in the noisy and crowded New York sports market, suffering declining attendance numbers since their rebirth. To illustrate that point, the Cosmos debuted in the Fall NASL Championship season of 2013, attracting an average 6,859 fans per match. They closed the 2016 version with an average of 3,536. The addition of MLS’s New York City FC to the local scene and the resurgence of the New York Red Bulls did not help their cause, either.

And as the Cosmos have faded, so has the league. The NASL, which already lost a pair of teams following the 2015 campaign, was dealt a near-death blow several weeks ago, with league-heritage club Tampa Bay Rowdies joining the Ottawa Fury in leaving the competition in favor of the United Soccer League. As Ottawa and Tampa Bay move on, so does Minnesota United, who are set to join MLS for 2017. Those losses, coupled with the uncertain futures of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers, Rayo OKC and the Jacksonville Armada, have pushed the NASL to the brink of extinction.

That scenario brings us to the present. With the NASL in full-on collapse, the Cosmos have begun to take steps that all but speak to their eventual closure. Staff members were put on furlough the day after Thanksgiving, before getting their official pink slips just 15 days short of Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, players were released from their deals last Monday, with further cuts coming to the coaching staff in the following days.

To observers, it seems all but certain that the Cosmos are set for their second death in three decades. But that assumption, says the club’s chairman Seamus O’Brien, could not be further from the truth.

“We are in a situation where over the last few months, we have a position where the NASL has been reduced from what originally looked like 13 teams to potentially seven,” O’Brien told the Guardian. “I don’t have to comment on it. Most of it has happened in the public domain. Everybody following knows the situation of a number of other teams. Some have gone to other leagues. Some are unable to carry on.”

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Despite the team’s struggles, O’Brien puts the blame on the league. O’Brien, who has always put forth his brand as one of the most important in football history, paints a picture of a thriving club dragged down by a league that failed to measure up to its lofty ambitions as a potential competitor to MLS.

“For us as the Cosmos, playing in a seven-team league potentially, you need to make decisions now,” O’Brien said. “You can’t wait until February, March to see if you are kicking a ball in April. It’s a business decision you have to take now. That’s not an option for us.”

While that may be a practical response, the issues are more complicated for the Cosmos. The team have acknowledged their financial plight in recent years, starting with a round of cuts in 2015 that limited spending on the team roster and eliminated high-paying executives from the front office. From there, the club engaged in a search for potential investors to join O’Brien and Sela Sports, a controlling Saudi interest within the club. Club teams, investment groups and several other interested parties have discussed an ownership role with the Cosmos over the past year, but have fallen short of becoming full on partners.

Meanwhile, reports have claimed mighty operating losses for the club, with some citing a total hit of $30m since the team’s rebirth in 2013, an astronomical sum for the second division. While O’Brien acknowledges the $30m figure, he refuses to label it a loss or an indication of any debt issues.

“The business has zero debt,” O’Brien insists. “That’s an investment in a business. That is a fraction of what some people have invested in this country. Look at all the MLS investments. They wouldn’t call that debt. That is an investment in our business. Our business carries zero debt. All the money has been invested by shareholders.”

If O’Brien is to be taken at his word, then the question is about his long-term vision for the club – and what exactly the investment is leading towards. After all, the team’s future, by any measure, seems questionable.

One option could be joining the USL. The league, which currently boasts 30 teams, has grown in recent years, thanks to an affiliation deal with MLS. However, as the NASL continues its death spiral, O’Brien has been steadfast against a move to USL, a competition which is now in line to become America’s official division two league.

“The Cosmos couldn’t play in the third division. We just couldn’t do it,” he explained. “And everybody we have spoken to, the discussions we have had internally amongst the group and our major partners, to a man – that is just not an option for us.”

Asked if he would reconsider his stance if USL did indeed achieve division two status, O’Brien continued to shun the idea. “At the moment, today, there isn’t any way we would consider USL, which is clearly D3, unless they get significant number of waivers,” he began. “There isn’t anybody we have spoken to that thinks that’s an option for us. Not in this town. There may be an option for other owners in the NASL who still have teams. It just isn’t an option for us.”

That, of course, leaves the Cosmos with a single professional American league to turn to: MLS. With the NASL’s antagonistic approach to MLS’s closed single-entity system, the Cosmos became the face of the insurgency, representing an organization with the history and global recognition to pose a potential threat to the establishment. Over the years, both the Cosmos and the NASL have made declarations of first division aspirations, going so far as to threaten litigation with the intent of introducing promotion and relegation to the US soccer pyramid.

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Now facing dwindling options, O’Brien has broken from past rhetoric, leaving the door open to mend fences and perhaps find an unlikely home with MLS. “Maybe,” a pensive O’Brien said, eyes focused on the ceiling of his midtown conference room. “I’ve never ruled out anything.”

“We just want to take a step back,” he continued. “We have been saddened by this situation more than anyone else. As anyone will vouch, we have done more to try to advance the status and progress of the NASL. Things happen in life and business. We are where we are. So we will sit back, look at all the options. People have been calling us, but let’s just say we want to do things as professionally as we can in the interim.”

But the MLS commissioner, Don Garber, does not seem too receptive to any MLS move for the Cosmos. “It’s a great brand,” Garber conceded during a state of the league address last week. “I spoke to the original purchaser of the brand many, many years ago. I had numerous conversations before NYC FC came in. Seamus O’Brien and his international investors made a decision which I am sure is one they thought was the right thing at the time.

“We have two teams in MLS in New York. We are not going to have a third ... I wish them luck, and I don’t say that lightly. When it reverberates around the world that there is instability in professional soccer, I don’t think that’s good for anybody.”

That brings the Cosmos right back to where the conversation began: the NASL. This week, US Soccer is set to make its final decisions on divisional status in the lower leagues. In conjunction with that ruling, the NASL’s future is also expected to be addressed. Currently, five teams are reportedly fighting for the very existence of the league – Miami FC, FC Edmonton, Indy Eleven, Puerto Rico FC and the San Francisco Deltas. Four prospective expansion sides are also rumored to be speaking with the league, including a promising new ownership group in Chicago, led by the influential soccer executive Peter Wilt.

The flailing NASL has been trying for some time to convince the Cosmos to reverse their stance and join their ranks. Interestingly enough, the Cosmos haven’t, to date, officially withdrawn their stake in the league.

However, O’Brien remains firm in his current course. Unless the league somehow manages a miracle and acquires 12 teams for the coming campaign, the Cosmos will not be back under the league umbrella. The brand, O’Brien says, is too important to allow to compete in a dying league. And he is prepared to sit out the coming storm to calculate his next move.

“There are a number of folks with the NASL, many of my colleagues there that believe in the future. It’s not that we don’t believe in the future of the league – it’s just that we can’t play in a seven-team league,” O’Brien said. “As a business, you’ve got to react to that. And that is what we have done. We are trying to tidy everything up as professionally as we can in the interim and look for how to move forward, that’s what we are here to do.”

So where does this all leave the Cosmos? O’Brien says that he has no intention of selling his stake in the club and insists his partners in Sela are still as committed as ever to the project. “This isn’t going away as some people may want us to. We are not,” a confident O’Brien declared. “We are going to take a step back, look at all of our options, and decide what we will do moving forward.”

Still, with no intentions of taking the field in 2017 and a muddy outlook throughout the US soccer pyramid, the team once again faces what could be another prolonged absence.