Having acquired the rights to a USL franchise, Hall will work directly with local officials to secure a suitable location for a major stadium project. The goal is to have the stadium and team ready for kickoff by the 2021 USL season or sooner, if possible.

“Professional soccer continues to thrive across North America, and we are thrilled to participate in its future by bringing a professional USL club to the East Bay,” said Hall. “The East Bay area is the center of gravity for soccer participation in Northern California. We have passionate fans who love the game, and I’m looking forward to building the club for this region, with a state-of-the-art venue to call their own.

“We see a unique opportunity to fill a professional sports void created from the loss of the Oakland Raiders and the Golden State Warriors to venues outside of the East Bay. We intend to fill that void with soccer, which we see as the up-and-coming sport of the future, both in our region and the nation. A well-conceived stadium complex can be a game-changing economic generator for the right area, and we hope there will be a community that will find an integrated stadium, hotel and conference facility to be an attractive anchor, which will generate jobs and economic vibrancy.

“Our new USL club will be a natural extension of our other sports-oriented activities currently underway in the East Bay,” said Hall, who is presently overseeing construction of the Shadelands SportsMall facility in Walnut Creek. This $45 million-dollar project is one of the largest privately financed indoor youth sports complexes in the United States, covering 250,000 square feet. This highly-anticipated facility, which is expected to complete construction by August 2018, will house seven long-established businesses conducting youth-oriented sports training. Tenants in the Shadelands SportsMall include the Ultimate Fieldhouse Basketball complex, which has recently been home to the Stephen Curry SC30 Select Camp, Encore Gymnastics, American Swim Academy, Vibe Volleyball, Mike Murphy Baseball, Sparta Taekwondo and the anchor tenant of the complex, Copa Reál Soccer Training Studios (www.coparealsoccer.com) – a subsidiary of Hall’s diversified sports business platform, known as COPA Innovation Laboratories.

For more information, visit www.usl2eastbay.com and the organization’s official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.