MLS SET TO ANNOUNCE NEW SAN DIEGO TEAM
Franchise, owned by Egyptian billionaire, Sycuan tribe, would begin play in 2025
It’s happening.
Major League Soccer is set to announce San Diego as its 30th team on Thursday in a news conference at Snapdragon Stadium.
The league has teased “a significant announcement about the future of soccer in San Diego” at the 10:45 a.m. news conference, which is closed to the public. MLS Commissioner Don Garber and San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, among others, are expected to attend.
The expansion franchise would begin play in February 2025 at the 35,000-capacity Mission Valley stadium, with an ownership group headed by the London-based Mansour Group and the local Sycuan tribe. Brad Termini, a San Diego developer, is believed to be among the minority partners.
The team is not expected to announce a name or crest Thursday, or the proposed location of its youth academy. But with 18 months before the expansion draft, 20 months before training camp opens and 21 months before its inaugural game, there is plenty of time for those details to emerge.
The final piece for MLS approval was a lease agreement with San Diego State’s new stadium, a complicated document that navigates spring, summer and fall dates in a building with multiple tenants. The $310 million venue, not yet a year old, already hosts Aztecs football; the San Diego Wave of the National Women’s Soccer League; professional rugby’s San Diego Legion; concerts; motorsports; and international soccer games.
“Based on the soccer we’re having this summer,” SDSU Athletic Director John David Wicker said last week, referring to three international games in June and July, “it shows that this venue is truly built for great soccer, and getting MLS is the last real piece of the puzzle. We’re excited to get to the finish line.”
That happened Monday night,
which meant the expansion proposal could be forwarded to the MLS board for authorization. Garber is expected to attend the official brand launch for the 2026 World Cup today in Los Angeles, then come to San Diego for the Thursday announcement.
Most MLS teams build their own soccer-specific stadiums to maximize revenues, although that adds to the startup costs. Snapdragon represents an enormous savings, then.
But getting a team won’t be cheap, with an expansion fee that league sources say is in the $500 million neighborhood, a significant increase from the $325 million that Charlotte FC paid. Neither figure could be independently verified, however.
The Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation has been interested in bringing MLS to San Diego for more than a year, but it wasn’t until last summer that a suitable investment partner was identified in Mohamed Mansour, an Egyptian billionaire who lives in London and in December became the treasurer of Britain’s conservative Tory party.
He heads the Mansour Group, a global consortium that is involved in international distribution for General Motors, Caterpillar, UPS, McDonald’s and other multinational companies. His son, Loutfy, runs its ManSports division that includes several soccer properties.
Both are U.S. educated. Mohamed has degrees from North Carolina State and Auburn; Loutfy attended Georgetown.
The Mansour Group owns FC Nordsjaelland, currently in second place in Denmark’s top soccer league. Two years ago, it invested a reported $120 million in the Right to Dream youth academy, which begin in Ghana and now has facilities in Denmark and Egypt as well. The expectation is that a fourth campus will open in San Diego, with the top prospects graduating to the MLS club’s roster and others to U.S. college programs.
MLS has said it would expand to 30 teams and then decide if it will grow further. Sacramento and Las Vegas were both in line ahead of San Diego, but both projects fell through — Sacramento’s after the league had formally granted it an expansion franchise in 2019 to start in 2022. The San Diego group pulled even with Las Vegas last fall, then nudged ahead over the winter.
A strong indication of San Diego’s chances came in November, when Adam Day, Sycuan’s chief administrative officer, stepped down from his position on the California State University Board of Trustees. The decision, he wrote in a resignation letter, “is made out of an abundance of caution because a to-be-formed entity associated with my employer … may be involved in future lease negotiations with a CSU campus.”
As news spread of the imminent announcement of MLS finally coming to San Diego after a 25-year wait and several close calls, people around the community began expressing their anticipation, the Padres included.
“I’m stoked,” pitcher Joe Musgrove, who grew up in El Cajon, said before Tuesday night’s game. “I’m super excited to have another professional sports team in San Diego. I had a blast watching the Wave . ... I didn’t play much soccer growing up, so the sport itself is relatively new to me, but getting to know (Wave forward) Alex (Morgan) over the past year or so, it engaged me in the sport a little more and I’ve ended up really liking it.
“I’m excited about it. I think the fans are, too. Obviously, everyone wants the Chargers back, but a new sports team coming to town, I think, will get a lot of support.”
Not expected to be part of Thursday’s announcement is the San Diego Loyal, which plays at USD’s Torero Stadium and is in its fourth season in the 24-team USL Championship, the de facto second division of the U.S. soccer pyramid. The MLS investment group and Loyal are known to have held discussions but did not reach an agreement to merge.
“We have become aware of an independent ownership group that intends to launch their own club in San Diego,” a statement by Loyal owner Andrew Vassiliadis said. “Our unwavering commitment is to the vision of growing soccer in this city, and we want to make that abundantly clear.
“San Diego, we are one with you. Our love for this city runs deep. This is our home, and we are proud to be part of its rich and diverse fabric. Our plan is simple. We aren’t going anywhere.”