With MLS adamantly focused on building a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, many presumed the NASL-bound New York Cosmos’ proposed stadium project at Belmont means they’ve given up hope of joining the top-flight league. But chairman and CEO Seamus O’Brien claims that’s not the case.
“I assume it makes us a more compliant MLS owner, doesn’t it?” O’Brien asked rhetorically in an interview with the Post. “I’m not going to comment on MLS, on MLS’ plans and reasons why MLS is going to push ahead in Flushing. But I know our agenda is to be as competitive as you can on and off the field, and you need to have your own facility to do that.’’
“It came around quicker than I wanted, but you’ve got to take opportunity when it comes. One thing I know for sure is if you’ve got your own stadium, you’re (more attractive) for any league.’’
While the former Cosmos owners were long on rhetoric and short on results – all hat and no cattle, as they’d say in Texas – O’Brien’s regime has provided far more substance and moved even quicker than he could’ve expected. The question is, is it moving toward MLS, or on from it?
They’ll open play in the NASL fall season, pushed back from the spring because they knew they weren’t ready to have a contending team by then. And the same holds true with their MLS ambitions, with O’Brien having long admitted that they’d have to build up to the contend in the United States’ Division 1 league.
“I said when I came in it would be extreme arrogance to start up Year One and think we’re going to win in the highest league in the country,’’ O’Brien told the Post. “We’re going to build, and this time when we get there we’re not going to go away.’’
With MLS commissioner Don Garber having maintained for years that he wanted his league’s 20th team to be an expansion club in New York – their first in the five boroughs, and a natural rival for the Red Bulls – the Cosmos have long been considered a contender for such a team, if not the favorite.
But MLS has now trademarked the names Empire FC and (NY) City FC, and has spent millions moving forward with plans to build a stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, plans they are steadfastly committed to.
“Major League Soccer continues to work with the city of New York and local elected officials on our quest to build a soccer stadium in Queens and we are making progress with the project,’’ said Dan Courtemanche, MLS’ Executive Vice President, Communications.
For background, back in 2010 several investors had announced their plans to bring the Cosmos to MLS. By the next fall, one of them – Saudi Arabian sports marketing firm Sela Sport – had forced the others out. But it was this past summer that things started to really accelerate – and possibly in different directions.
In June MLS settled on Queens, intent on getting the troublesome stadium deal out of the way and then extracting their hoped $100 million expansion fee. That same summer, Sela brought in O’Brien, who is the chairman and CEO of Singapore-based World Sport Group, and by November had hired COO Erik Stover, a noted facilities expert who oversaw the building of $200 million Red Bull Arena.
Stover, in a Q & A with Cosmos supporters, admitted they’re not dead-set on reaching MLS, but parsed his statement by insisting they’re committed to playing “at the top of the US soccer pyramid.” That could mean NASL would try to bulk up its operations and challenge MLS, or that the Cosmos could try to help form an entirely new Division 1 league.
“We are in discussions with a variety of potential ownership groups, all who are very interested in being involved with the division I soccer league in North America,’’ said Courtmemanche. “MLS continues to support the development of the lower leagues.”
Most NASL teams aren’t well-heeled enough for MLS; few have the resources the Cosmos do. If Sela’s statement on its website claiming “more than $40 million worth of business per annum is accurate, it could be strained to build a $200 million stadium and then pay another $100 million expansion fee. But silent partners abound, from O’Brien’s World Sport Group to shareholder ISE.
The former was liquid enough for a controversial $1 billion deal that gave it near-total control over airing, promoting and staging Asian Football Confederation games. While shareholder Lagardere Unlimited is partly-owned by a branch of the Qatar government, ISE is owned by Saudi billionaire Saleh Kamel, whose brother-in-law Hussein Mohsin Al Harthy represents Sela Sport.
It’s unclear just how tangled the web is, and hard to place odds on the Cosmos ever joining MLS. That’s clear is they’ll finally be playing soccer again this fall, and could be playing it in their own building by 2016 – and the ride to that point is going to bear watching for twists and turns and high drama.