viernes, 28 de agosto de 2020

How things snowballed so quickly for Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen, and what actions may be taken

20170329 Dell Loy Hansen, Real Salt Lake owner, talks about Real Salt Lake’s new head coach Mike Petke during a press conference at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. FILE: Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen speaks during a 2017 press conference. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

RSL is still scheduled to practice today and travel to Portland for its game Saturday, a team spokesperson said

SANDY — The uproar all started at about 9:20 a.m. on Thursday, when Dell Loy Hansen decided to go on the radio — on one of the stations his Broadway Media company owns — to express his frustration over a canceled soccer game.

Hard work had gone into welcoming a limited number of fans back to Rio Tinto Stadium safely for a match against Los Angeles FC the night before. Employees were in place, and earning money for the event. Fans had a team to root for in person — one of the only venues in the country able to accomplish it.

But the player boycott of the game interrupted that.

He was critical of his players’ decision, suggesting they should’ve cared more about the local impact than the national story.

Jake Simons, a host for the RSLSHOW Podcast, tweeted as the interview unfolded.

Three minutes later he tweeted Hansen saying the wind had been taken out of his sails about running the team.

It didn’t take long for those comments to spread nationally which led to several prominent athletes, both in MLS and NBA, to respond swiftly.

By the end of the day, a damning report about a pattern of alleged racial comments was published by The Athletic, which had the MLS Players Association calling for an immediate suspension of Hansen and MLS announcing it was starting an investigation into the racial comments.

Expressing his opinion about his players standing with other professional athletes in a boycott likely wasn’t going to lead Hansen to be forced to sell the team by MLS — though signing players in the future will surely be difficult. But, if the allegations in The Athletic are investigated by MLS and proven true, he may indeed be forced out by the league and its owners.

Any forced sell would be made complicated by the fact that he also owns the Utah Royals, the Real Monarchs and the RSL Academy.

Miki Turner, a Seattle Sounders fan and lawyer in Washington, combed through the MLS constitution on Thursday and found a clause that an owner can be forced to sell if a two-thirds majority of owners believe an owner didn’t act in the best interest of the league.

Andy Williams, a former player and scout for RSL who was laid off back in April, provided much of the info for The Athletic story. He was the longest-tenured employee at the time of his lay-off. He joined RSL in its initial MLS Expansion Draft, and played with the club from 2005 to 2011. He then remained on staff as a scout until this year.

A fan favorite at RSL during his playing days, Williams had a sharp reply to a text message sent from Dell Loy Hansen’s wife Julie to David James, that was posted on the KUTV2news Twitter feed Thursday night.

About 24 hours after Hansen’s initial comments on the radio, a team spokesperson said Real Salt Lake is still scheduled to practice today and then travel to Portland Saturday for its scheduled match. How that story potentially evolves remains to be seen.

According to California soccer reporter Alicia Rodriguez, LAFC head coach Bob Bradley — who coached the United States national team from 2006-2011 — said Friday that Hansen should be ousted as RSL’s owner.

“There’s enough of a pattern with his leadership that he does not belong in his current role any longer,” Rodriguez reported Bradley as saying.

After the swift backlash from his comments on Thursday morning, Hansen went on a different radio station he owned later in the day to try and clarify his comments.

“The players’ intentions were probably misinterpreted on my side. I felt we had a duty to the community and they felt they had a duty to a greater purpose, and they acted on that greater purpose, and I can respect them for that,” said Hansen. “I’m sorry that I didn’t express it more clearly.”

There were many on social media who agreed with his initial criticism of the players for joining the national boycott and not playing the match which 5,000 fans had bought tickets for. But the vocal majority did not — including many season ticket holders who took to Twitter to announce they had or were planning on canceling their season tickets.

#DLHOUT has long been used by RSL fans on Twitter to express frustrations about Hansen, but it was taken to another level throughout the day on Thursday as fans of both that club and Utah Royals FC of the National Women’s Soccer League shared anger regarding the owner of the two teams.

Some even changed their avatars to a red circle with white letters that read “DLH Out.”

While only some changed their avatars, many expressed that they will not support the clubs or even the leagues so long as Hansen owns them.

Still others expressed strong feelings, even if they didn’t go so far as to say they’ll stop supporting the clubs. Some did call upon MLS commissioner Don Garber and NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird to take action against Hansen.

Hansen said that in the six or so hours between his two radio interviews Real Salt Lake lost $3 million in sponsorship revenue.

The financial hit will take its toll on an organization that already made staffing and salary cuts back in April because of COVID-19.



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