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Rocco Commisso extends deadline for U.S. Soccer to accept $500 million offer

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New York Cosmos owner Rocco Commisso recently pledged to invest up to $500 million in U.S. Soccer, provided president Carlos Cordeiro sat down with him to discuss the future of the game in this country and the future of the NASL.

He originally set a deadline of May 21 for that meeting to take place, but has extended that deadline to May 31. Commisso presented his original request on April 13 and has not received a response to his latest efforts to sit down with U.S. Soccer officials.

Commisso wants “to engage in sustained direct negotiations through representatives empowered to make a deal” and figure out a way to get the NASL back off the ground for the 2019 season. He’s struggled to get U.S. Soccer to the bargaining table, and even cancelled a meeting between current and prospective NASL owners earlier this month because the federation could not attend.

Cordeiro and U.S. Soccer are open to a meeting, but they want more details from Commisso and his associates before agreeing to one. Cordeiro also mentioned that he is busy campaigning for the United 2026 World Cup hosting bid in his initial response to the Cosmos owner.

In addition to the request for a meeting, Commisso wants “a list of interim meetings and actions that it believes are prerequisites for a final board meeting at which a ‘yes or no’ decision on the proposal will be made.” He wants this final meeting to take place on or before June 29.

For what it’s worth, he did release a few details on what he wants his league to look like going forward. He wants to reboot the competition in 2019 with ten teams, former NASL sides New York Cosmos, Jacksonville Armada, Miami FC, and Puerto Rico FC. He also claims to have commitments from current NPSL teams in Hartford, Detroit, and Chattanooga.

He ambitiously hopes to have Division I sanctioning for the 2020 season, when he plans to add four more teams.

Comments

  1. Rocco actually only pledged 250 million. He said that he thought he could raise another 250 million (but good luck with that.)

    The 250 million he is pledging is about what an MLS expansion team costs nowadays, when you count both the expansion fee and the cost of building a new stadium. So in effect Rocco is offering to pay for one expansion team as long as he gets to rewrite the rules of US Soccer. Sure, they will want to let him do that.

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  2. the mls/ussoccer leaders will never give up single entity, that’s why they won’t sit down and talk to rocco. his way (club ownership) is like a threat to them.

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    • i guess they don’t to say that publicly, they’d rather publicly say, “we’re busy.”

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  3. Thanks Rocco!

    I am extending my offer to coach the nat team too. You better hurry, this isn’t going to last forever ( I will die ).

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    • Yeah, I was going to extend the same offer. And I would recruit all of the armchair quarterbacks that frequent this site. Surely we can collectively coach the NT better than people with actual experience.

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  4. This dude reminds me of that guy on the TV commercials with all the question marks on his suit talking about “free money”. Only even less credible.

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  5. Why not a simple “no.” We don’t need the money, and he’s not an elected official. If you have an idea for the federation run it through normal channels.

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  6. I would like to announce I’m extending the deadline for Ives to accept the offer of my blogging services

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    • Ha! And I would like to announce I’m extending the deadline for Nicki Minaj to accept my offer of matrimony.

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  7. This is a pretty insane situation! US Soccer must be rich enough and have an awesome recruiting and identification strategy to walk away from 500 mil … LOL. Clearly they don’t need any additional investment, funding or discernment on how to become The greatest soccer nation in the world is ever known.

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    • I think you are misunderstanding, he is proposing to invest $500 million….for himself. Not giving US soccer federation $500 million.

      For instance, like the new prospective DC United owner was going to do. Which is basically what he would probably do. Invest $500 million in a team with a stadium screw parity and propose that team be the super club and all others bow down.

      Maybe they can take us ALL the way back to the 1970s by printing paper papers and have the Cosmos be listed as COSMOS with all the other teams listed by their CITY names…just in case it wasn’t clear which team was the super team.

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