Sporting KC yet to deliver on youth fields

• by Soccer America , Jan 22, 2013

[FACILITIES] Among the conditions for receiving $230 million in state and local tax subsidies for its MLS stadium, Sporting Kansas City promised nearly two dozen youth soccer fields in Wyandotte County, including three "urban fields" that were supposed to have opened for by 2011. The Kansas City Star's Mike Hendricks reports the MLS club has failed to deliver.

Sites for the three inner-city fields nor the 18-field, tournament-quality soccer complex, which was supposed to be ready last month, have not even been identified.

“Sporting has really done nothing to push the issue to build the complex or the three fields to be built in the urban core,” Jose Zarate, president of both the KCK Soccer Association and statewide Kansas Youth Soccer Association, told the Star. “But it’s not like the Unified Government has been pushing them to, either.”

Unified Government public relations director Mike Taylor said in a statement to the Star:

“The Sporting KC group is developing some new concepts and ideas related to the tournament and urban soccer fields. … Sporting KC executives are taking longer than anticipated as they design a program to reach as many KCK kids as possible and integrate the soccer experience into our parks and recreation in a broad way.”