This Saturday, LA Galaxy II and Orange County Soccer Club will match up at Championship Soccer Stadium in front of a sold-out crowd. Both clubs are outside of playoff position — but the USL Western Conference race isn't quite why OCSC is expecting its largest crowd in club history.
In early August, the City of Irvine was set to vote on a series of new operation models for Championship Soccer Stadium at Great Park in Irvine — one of which involved the LA Galaxy.
Specifically, one proposal on the table would allow LA Galaxy II — and no other soccer team — to have access to the venue starting with the 2023 MLS Next Pro season, even though the venue is the current home for OCSC.
“Based on our preliminary discussions with LA Galaxy II, this alternate Stadium operational model contemplates partnering exclusively with LA Galaxy II for use of the Stadium for their home games,” read the City Council Agenda item for the Aug. 9 meeting. Following outcry which included Orange Country Soccer Club fans taking to social media, the proposal was tabled.
Although the item was not up for discussion on the City Council that day, fans still made their way to the meeting and let their voices be heard by their elected officials.
OCSC's Interim President of Business Operations, Dan Rutsein, drew parallels to a similar, notorious situation in his native country of England.
"I'm English and my team back in the UK is AFC Wimbledon," he revealed to The Striker. Referring to the saga in which Wimbledon FC was transported to Milton Keynes and renamed MK Dons F.C., with fans then banding together to help launch the void-filling AFC Wimbledon club, he noted that his team was "uprooted and moved and had to form a new club and that team received incredible support from the broader football community.
As he put it, "I think football fans everywhere know when they see an injustice.
"Nobody likes to see a team suffer for off-the-field reasons," he added. "And it's been amazingly empowering for us as a front office to see how our fans and the fans of other teams have been so supportive."
OCSC beat Galaxy II 5-2 at Dignity Health Sports Park earlier this season and Rutstein is looking forward to this rivalry game on Saturday — especially amidst the backdrop of LA Galaxy trying to get a hold of the stadium.
"Under any circumstances, it would be a hard-fought local fixture," he told The Striker. "Obviously, the circumstances are entirely different this time around. As has been very widely reported, there have been discussions going on for a few months between LA Galaxy officials and the City of Irvine about us potentially being evicted from the stadium so they can have exclusive use,"
"For there to be a game when this issue is not yet concluded, when they are literally coming into our stadium to play against us, it's a symbolic game."
Rutstein urges fans to respect the LA Galaxy II players and fans during Saturday's matchup, noting, "We bear no ill will against the players and technical staff of LA Galaxy, and we definitely bear no ill will to Galaxy fans themselves, if anything. They've been incredibly supportive throughout all of this process. When it was on social media, Galaxy fans were as angry as our fans were. So we will urge our fans and we're putting out a statement tomorrow to treat our opponents with respect, to treat the visiting fans with respect, because we're a community football team and it's a family environment."
He then clarified, "Our anger is against the corporation that is LA Galaxy and its parent company, not the people who are representing it."
Uncertainty
OCSC received communication from the City of Irvine last Friday, in which City Manager Oliver Chi shared through e-mail that he “can’t guarantee the stadium will be available for OC Soccer Club’s use for the 2023 season,” according to a statement from the club published on its website Wednesday morning.
The club pointed out in the statement that it was “his first direct communication with us in months.”
The upcoming city council meeting slated for September 13 at 5 p.m. will discuss the future of the stadium. A request memo from Vice Mayor of Irvine Anthony Kuo to Chi, states, “The current Memorandum of Understanding with the Orange County Soccer Club to play at Championship Soccer Stadium at the Great Park is scheduled to expire in November. At such point, the agreement provides for an automatic two-year renewal. Please place a discussion item on the September 13, 2022 City Council Agenda allowing the Council to provide additional feedback and further direction to Staff relative to the Stadium.”
Rutstein noted that this leaves their future up in the air, remarking, "Discussions are ongoing at the moment we still have no certainty and we're seeking that certainty. The USL are opening up their portal for teams to start preparing the data as we get into the preparation for next year. And we are seeking certainty so that we can go into that process knowing where we can play next year. And at the moment, we don't have that certainty."
The current Memorandum of Understanding was signed in January 2019, and the agenda for the August 9 meeting stated, “The MOU will automatically renew in November 2022 for an additional two years unless terminated by either party.”
OCSC is given priority under the current MOU and other professional clubs are allowed to use the stadium.
"We are trying to seek from the council confirmation about our status," added Rutstein. "We're very pleased that it's now on the agenda for the meeting and we will turn up and we look forward to hearing whatever the discussion is and hopeful for a positive outcome."
Tempe, Ariz.-based USL-C reporter Owain Evans noted in a tweet last weekend that LA Galaxy and the City of Irvine have had conversations over this venue since April.
A month ago, we saw LA Galaxy's attempt to move its reserves to Orange County, which could have forced @orangecountysc from its home.
— Owain Evans (@ojevans18) September 3, 2022
Now, emails and texts obtained from the City of Irvine show discussions on this between LAG and Irvine were taking place from at least April 🧵 pic.twitter.com/8SZnaLJUc4
“As is now well known," OCSC's statement said, "LA Galaxy have been working closely with officials in the City of Irvine since at least April around a plan that would see us evicted from our home stadium of five years and the city that has been our home for the last decade,”
OCSC has encouraged fans to attend and speak at the upcoming City council meeting over the uncertain future of the club's home stadium.
“We encourage you to attend the September 13 City Council meeting," the statement encouraged. "We encourage you to continue to raise your voices and be heard. City leaders need to hear loud and clear that this team is essential to the future of Irvine and to the fabric of the Irvine community."
"We only knew about this when we saw the planned agenda item which then was pulled from the agenda the day before, which was also the day that Galaxy put out the statement saying they're not seeking exclusivity," said Rutstein. He added hat OCSC has not spoken to or heard from the LA Galaxy over the stadium plans and "we haven't talked to them directly and we have no intention of doing so unless they reached out to us."
Support for OCSC
Orange County Soccer Club won the USL Championship title last season and has been seeing local interest in the club grow.
"Like with anything, I don't think you realize what something's value is until somebody tries to take it away from you," Rutstein said. "We've obviously always had a dedicated fan base and this year we've seen attendance is up 30% and I think some of that is probably because we are the champions and we won the league last year.
"But the outpouring of support we have seen from the fans of our club, but also from the fans of all of the other teams in our league, including our rivals like Phoenix and San Diego but actually from Galaxy, LAFC, Columbus Crew, and Detroit fans. There has been an incredible outpouring of support from the broader soccer community."
He added, "It's been amazingly empowering for us as a front office to see how our fans and the fans of other teams have been so supportive and so many of them turned up at the council meeting and sent in letters and emails to the league expressing their concern about opposition it's incredibly heartwarming for us to realize the value we've created.
"This football team which is a community team, the fans obviously appreciate the work we do and they feel a connection with us. And we feel a connection with them like we've never felt before maybe even more than when we won the league championship, so it's been amazing for us."
Saturday's match will kick off at 7 p.m. PT, but certainly OCSC fans will be thinking about much more than the result.