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

1. John Thorrington

2. Andre Rocha

3. Jimmy Conrad

4. Joe Vide

5. Mike Magee

Rocha’s goal was pretty sick.

Suttle Mindlin Architects & Planners said Wednesday it has finished master planning and design of a $400 million soccer, retail and entertainment complex in Metro East.

The planned development is a 400-acre mixed-use project that will house an 18,500-seat outdoor soccer stadium. The development is in suburban Collinsville, Ill., on former agricultural property, located within the intersection of Interstates 55-70 and Interstate 255.

St. Louis-area lawyer Jeff Cooper chairs St. Louis Soccer United, a group working to bring a Major League Soccer men’s team to play in the complex.

Groundbreaking will occur on a planned $400 million stadium and mixed-use development called The Fields once the St. Louis area is awarded a team, possibly as soon as later this year, Cooper said.

Image via Stltoday

How awkward has this got to be for Greg to be talking about?   I think he handled this extremely well, all things considered.

If this week’s award doesn’t go to Toronto FC new boy Chad Barrett, then somethings wrong.

Great break down from the boys this week.

UPDATE - DC United’s Jamie Moreno has won the Goal of the Week.

1. Tidy outside the left foot by Arturo Alvarez on his debut back with San Jose.

2. Jaime Moreno’s (remember those gophers that pop up and you try to hit with a mallet?) pop up / redirect header on Kevin Hartman.

3. Brad Davis’ boombasso from the top of the 18 yard box. The touch, the strike, the placement and the power.

4. Patrick Nyarko’s first MLS goal, picking up the scraps while facing the wrong way and roofing.

5. Amado Guevara’s free kick that probably couldn’t get any further into the upper V.

While I like Guevara’s and Nyarko’s goals, I’m going with Brad Davis’ goal because of the build up through Brian Mullan and the way his body was facing the sideline, but was able to get around it with the inside of his foot to get it up and around Will Hesmer.

The ongoing battle between MLS, New England Revolution and the Columbus Crew finally ended today as our boy Pat Noonan was re-acquired by Major League Soccer and the Revolution, then promptly traded to the Columbus Crew for their 2009 1st Round Pick, Allocation Money and ended with swapping their Allocation Spots as the Revs now have the Number 3 position and the Crew down to the 10th.

All of the haggling surrounding Noonan’s return to Major League Soccer revolved initially on Noonan leaving for free at the beginning of 2008 after the Revolution wanted him to take a significant pay cut. With MLS understandably unwilling to pay to get him back in the league even though Columbus had the funds and the right numbers for Noonan to come back, it took two months for the deal to finalize.

The Revolution get ALOT out of this deal as they are in a great situation without Noonan, top of the table in the East, not on the hook for his salary AND (the most important part) they never used or was allocated anything for the initial loss of Noonan when he signed for Norwegian side Aalesunds FK.

image via Wiki

I’m a huge fan of hearing post game interviews with Coaches when they’re honest and not being politically correct.

I want to start this off by saying no one has told me that Henry is coming to MLS or anything like that. Instead, this is more of a “what if” type thing. With Henry in New York with Barcelona for a friendly against Red Bull New York, I can’t help myself  imagining Henry in MLS one day. Everyone knows Henry is a huge fan of New York, and I have to guess that the folks over at Red Bull feel the same towards Henry.  This has got to be the perfect fit.

With the success that Beckham has been for the league so far, bringing in Henry and planting him in New York would have at least the same effect (imagine the fear he would strike in every defense in the league). A world class star in the two biggest markets in the country would be huge. A big LA v NY rivalry would be great for the league and the sport. I got my fingers crossed that this one will happen sooner rather than later. After the jump, check out one of my all time Thierry Henry videos.

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