New NASL Professional Soccer Team Coming to San Diego?

Demba Ba, majority owner NASL franchise San Diego County

The continuing story of Soccer City now has another wrinkle in what has already been a dramatic and controversial story.

The San Diego Union Tribune’s report this weekend that the North American Soccer League is expected to announce an expansion team is coming to San Diego and is expected to begin playing next year.

According to the report, those behind the plan include majority owner European star Demba Ba (pictured) and the expected new NASL pro soccer team in San Diego will build their own stadium to play in.  They say it will be located somewhere in the North County.  

The report says their stadium will seat 10,000, expandable to 15,000 and will be built as a fabricated structure for between 10 and 15 million dollars and could possibly be ready for play as early as August of next year.

Now wait just a minute you might be saying.  

So just days after the Soccer City developers suffer a defeat at City Hall and describe it as something that could threaten their whole plan for an MLS team and a housing, retail and restaurant development on the site of the stadium in Mission Valley, an announcement is imminent of an NASL franchise on its way to San Diego in less than a year?

So some are already asking what does this mean for the Soccer City plan that is now set to get to voters in November 2018. 

Will it go forward to that election?  If it does, will this North American Soccer League make it harder to win the vote for the Mission Valley plan?  And how will this affect plans by San Diego State which needs a new football stadium and wants some of the land in Mission Valley?

Who would have thought a few years ago that within weeks of the National Football League season here in 2017, all the talk in town would be about soccer?

(Photo credit Getty Images)


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