Opinion

No criminal case on MLS, but still unethical

Fans jammed Toyota Field Saturday Aug. 5, 2017, to watch San Antonio FC take on Orange County SC. Alamo City soccer fans are coming to grips with the news that the MLS may ditch San Antonio for Austin. Fans jammed Toyota Field Saturday Aug. 5, 2017, to watch San Antonio FC take on Orange County SC. Alamo City soccer fans are coming to grips with the news that the MLS may ditch San Antonio for Austin. Photo: Kody Melton For MySA Photo: Kody Melton For MySA Image 1 of / 113 Caption Close No criminal case on MLS, but still unethical 1 / 113 Back to Gallery

Major League Soccer’s expansion process has been “unfair, unethical and duplicitous,” but it probably was not criminal.

That is the key finding in a letter from prominent attorney Mikal C. Watts to Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, who had requested the District Attorney’s office investigate whether MLS misled local officials about San Antonio’s prospects to land an expansion team. At issue is the prospect of the Columbus Crew SC moving to Austin. Wolff and others have said they were told a team could be in only San Antonio or Austin, not both.

The letter also criticizes Spurs Sports & Entertainment, the county’s partner in the MLS bid, for deferring its application for an expansion team. That’s a potential problem because there may not be another wave of expansion. As New York-based attorney Bradley I. Ruskin, writing for the league in a Nov. 17 letter to Wolff, “At this time, MLS expects to select new expansion clubs in the next few months, and may select two additional expansion clubs at some future date thereafter.”

The key word there is, may. As in, it may happen, or it may not. Major League Soccer has named four markets — Cincinnati, Detroit, Sacramento and Nashville — as finalists.

OK, this process may not be criminal but it was not entirely above board either. And we lay that on Major League Soccer.

At several points in his letter to Wolff, Watts says the Spurs’ decision to defer has cost the city a chance to compete: “Regardless of whether the MLS expansion process was fraudulent, Bexar County’s application partner’s request that the application not be considered in the initial two-team expansion decision — which MLS very recently disclosed may be the only expansion decision — acts as a de facto denial of the application.”

In a statement on Thursday, MLS spokesman Dan Courtemanche said the league and the Spurs will continue to talk about a possible expansion team here.

In a previous statement, the Spurs said it will continue working with the league on this.

Much of Wolff’s frustration is tied to the assertion that MLS President Mark Abbott had told officials a team could not be placed in Austin and San Antonio. But MLS officials didn’t reveal that Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt had a contractual right to move his team to Austin. If county officials had known that, Wolff has said they would not have purchased Toyota Field or pursued an MLS bid.

Even worse, Precourt was also named to the league’s expansion committee — an obvious conflict of interest. He is no longer part of that committee.

In his response to Wolff, Ruskin makes clear MLS never made any promises to city, county or Spurs officials — and even implies the league was doing the city a favor by meeting in the first place.

“The meeting between Mr. Abbott and the County’s representatives took place at your request as an accommodation to you,” Ruskin writes.

But interestingly, Ruskin also says it’s entirely possible teams could be in Austin and San Antonio, writing, “(i) at no time has MLS agreed not to place an MLS team in San Antonio (even if there is also an MLS team in Austin). (ii) from MLS’ perspective, there is nothing that would contractually prevent MLS from awarding an expansion club to San Antonio should MLS determine that such a course of action is desirable, and (iii) at this time Mr. Precourt has not formally notified MLS of an intention to relocate his club to Austin nor have the conditions that would need to be satisfied for any such relocation been met.”

We would just note that San Antonio is a wonderful, thriving city with deep ties to Mexico and would prove to be a dynamic market for MLS — better, in our estimation, than Austin. The Spurs organization is incredibly well-run and a major selling point in our potential bid for expansion. For example, an excerpt of Ruskin’s letter says, “MLS has great respect for the Spurs organization and believes that the Spurs have acted in a first class professional manner.”

Wolff’s frustrations are in many ways justified, and his passion for San Antonio is evident. Major League Soccer should have been forthright about the potential for a team to move to the Austin market. That said, the odds have always been long, and we can’t help but wonder how this back-and-forth with the league is helping.

We remain skeptical that the league would allow teams in both cities, San Antonio and Austin. We would welcome testing that.

But the fact remains that the county and the Spurs made a decision on purchasing Toyota Field absent crucial information. Should local officials have been more skeptical? Perhaps, but that crucial information was arguably withheld — by MLS.