L.A. Will Get Second Pro Soccer Team(To be on this team, you have to be Hispanic or speak Spanish)

Latimes.com ^ | Grahame L. Jones,

[KQQL]

Before the month is out, Los Angeles will have a second professional soccer team, Chivas USA, owned by Mexican businessman Jorge Vergara and playing alongside the Galaxy at the Home Depot Center.

Major League Soccer will make the announcement within the next week or two, but The Times has learned that Vergara, the league and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which operates five of the 10 MLS teams, are close to — but have not signed — an agreement

Sisniega said Chivas USA would have "eight or nine Mexican players on the team and the others will be Americans. We're going to look around and try to recruit mostly Mexican American or Hispanic players to the extent that that's possible. But our team will communicate in Spanish and our fan base will probably want to speak to them in Spanish. We're going to have American players, but it will be important for them to learn Spanish if they don't know Spanish."

[KQQL]

Interesting.

[sibbel]

As a business you have to look who your customers are...

[LadyDoc]

But our team will communicate in Spanish and our fan base will probably want to speak to them in Spanish.

Sounds like the soccer team my son played on.

It had mostly students from the local junior college, which had some central American exchange students, and also had a program for deaf students.

So the team communicated in both ESL sign language or in Spanish...they won all the games because they confused the other teams ;-)

[longtermmemmory]

I imagine if they attrace a NY City audience they will need to lean to speak Manhattan.

[aardvark1]

I played soccer for a number of years and truly love the game....BUT I never watch it, especially the MLS. I suspect no one will notice.