St. Louis Stadium Developer May Balk at League Fees.

The attorney who has spent a year wooing investors to fund a $573 million mixed-use soccer stadium complex now admits a key piece of the plan – a new Major League Soccer expansion team to be housed on the Collinsville site – may be too costly.

“We have to look at this as a business decision,” said Jeff Cooper, chairman of St. Louis Soccer United, a group that’s spearheaded the effort to secure a professional men’s soccer team in the region. Cooper, who has been aggressively recruiting investors for the project, last week said that MLS has steadily increased the cost of adding a team, and the sum now totals around $50 million, far higher than they were originally told. “We’re not going to pay so much,” Cooper said.

Image via CollinsvilleHerald