Ticking Off My Friend From Salt Lake

Real Salt Lake seems to be holding on by the skin of it's teeth. Now you've got prominent folks out in Salt Lake bitch slapping Checketts in the press. I'm sure that is a BIG help.

Then when you read things like the following:

"I expect it to come together quickly or not at all," Valentine said, suggesting a deal could come within a week.

All or nothing??? In a week? Sounds ominous.

Or,

Meanwhile, MLS sources say Checketts has received clearance from the league to explore relocating his two-year-old franchise and possibly selling it to "serious" investors in St. Louis.

Salt Lake City's mayor referred to such a possible sale as reason to cancel Wednesday's council meeting. "Mr. Checketts may have sold the team by this afternoon," Anderson said. The mayor also didn't want to discuss soccer in public, saying the news media could "screw things up for us."

That's right. It would be the media's fault.

So Real was almost gone yesterday.

Sounds ominous.

Then you read this about the "glimmers of hope,"

Another Salt Lake City option once floated would put the stadium downtown north of The Gateway on property owned by Gastronomy.

Company owner Tom Guinney said Wednesday that he has not spoken with the team about the land. "We do have a great location for soccer in Salt Lake City downtown. We tried to put this together about six months ago, but it didn't fly."

When asked if he had any hope of his property being a possibility, he said: "I'm not qualified to have an opinion on that."

So, the team is within hours, maybe, of being sold, and folks are trying to revive long dead plans of which they have no idea of the viability. Yikes.

Sounds ominous.

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