MLS Finally Plays the Hispanic Card

Sean O'Conor

As its tenth anniversary approaches in 2006, Major League Soccer has much to look back on with pride: The construction of the USA's first professional-football only stadia, a successful men's national team that reached the 2002 World Cup quarter-finals, ongoing live broadcasts on national TV and above all the survival of a league in a country that failed to sustain professional football throughout the twentieth century.

There have also been some minuses: The depressing flirtation with ‘Americanisms' like the shoot-out and the two Florida teams that began with a fanfare and folded with a whimper, for instance. And whilst the average crowd seems to have levelled off at below the 20,000 mark, the best American players, Landon Donovan apart, are still leaving the league for Europe whenever they can, or in the case of US internationals Conor Casey and John O'Brien for example, bypassing MLS altogether. Plus MLS is in the red, badly so and jumps at every £1m + on the table.

The league saves where it can by closing or relocating loss-making teams (San Jose looks next) and building its own stadia (Dallas' new ground will be the third and Chicago's the fourth) and when an offer of a £1million or more for a US international arrives at the league's offices in Chicago (MLS and not the individual teams holds all the players' contracts) they accept it. But the latest tactic is their most interesting of all, a gamble in any man's language.

Jose Vergara, the flamboyant Mexican millionaire and owner of Chivas of Guadalajara, one of Mexico's top sides, has agreed to enter a Chivas USA side in MLS next season, run unashamedly by and for America's Spanish speakers.

Despite vain attempts by MLS to steer Vergara toward the Hispanically influenced and pro soccer-free cities of San Diego, San Antonio or Houston, Chivas USA will be based in Los Angeles and share the new 27,000 seat Home Depot Center with LA Galaxy.

The creation of an ‘ethnic' club within MLS has understandably dismayed many fans and commentators, who worry about the unwelcome potential for racism to enter the league and whether LA Galaxy and others brave attempts' to woo the millions of football-loving Hispanics will now have been in vain.

But while this may be seen as throwing in the ethno-cultural towel, in truth MLS has largely failed to rouse the sleeping giant that is the 35 million (2000 Census) football-loving Latin Americans living in the USA.

Whilst LA Galaxy and DC United have Latino supporters like the ‘Ultras Galaxians' and ‘Barra Brava' who have tried to replicate the fan groups of their native lands, most MLS games attract only scattered groups of Hispanics amidst a majority of white suburban Americans, the backbone of the sport in the States.

Hispanics, by contrast, are largely urban and, whilst football is in their blood, they prefer to follow the fortunes of their teams in ‘the old country'. The league has tried hard to woo them with special campaigns and events but, so far, without conspicuous success.

So will this implant heal the patient? Maybe, and especially if it awakens the dormant fanbase of American Hispanics in general it will prove to have been a smart move. If non Chivas-supporting Mexicans turn up for a match in say, Chicago, purely out of interest or even to cheer against Chivas, maybe enough will enjoy the experience enough to come back for the next Fire game.

Or maybe not. Since MLS rules forbid more than 4 overseas players per side, can Chivas USA hope to unearth enough quality Latinos in the USA to sustain a professional squad?

If Spanish is to be the lingua franca of the franchise, then talented English-speaking Americans will neither be hunted nor attracted to the club. This is surely a loss for both. And if Chivas USA fails to deliver the goods on the field and becomes a pale shadow of its famous parent, then fans will be turned off by the prospect of another Ajax Orlando or one of Australia's European farm teams, tribute bands instead of the real thing.

However, MLS seems to have wrong-footed the doubters with the announcement that the first Chivas coach will be Dutchman Thomas Rongen, a NASL veteran whose MLS coaching career has been distinctly mixed. What this means for the planned Hispanic identity of the club we can only guess at.

There have also been fears raised that this will be the first of many surrenders of American soccer sovereignty to established clubs from around the world until the American league becomes a sub-standard plaything. However, since football has yet to definitively prove itself in financial and supporter terms in America, this appears far off and unlikely.

The MLS is in debt and when a millionaire investor with a bulging wallet and fatter promises came calling, the bait was too sweet to resist. Chivas USA's presence in MLS next season still seems surreal and built on unsteady foundations.

But the interest in their first home match will be huge and the whole experience will be captivating if sustained. Even if the experiment fails, money and media interest have already poured in to the league with the Chivas announcement and it is on balance, a gamble worth taking.

Sean O'Conor

Real Madrid
Goods

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