After several weeks on life support, the plug was pulled Wednesday on the Salt Lake Sting.
Professional soccer is dead in Salt Lake City.The American Professional Soccer League officially ended the Sting saga after prospective buyer Avie Haber of Fruit Heights missed another league-imposed deadline to take over the team.
"The deadline was last night (Tuesday)," said Bill Sage, APSL co-chairman, from Seattle. "We let the deadline slip to today based on assurances that he (Haber) would get the players paid today, but nobody's heard from Avie.
"As far as the league's concerned, the team's been terminated."
The players and Coach Valery Volostnykh gathered Wednesday at noon in an apartment near Derks Field, where they expected to meet with - and be paid by - Haber. When Haber didn't show, Volostnykh said, the players assumed the worst and parted. Many of them have already left the state, to return to their off-season homes or to pursue offers from other teams, the coach added.
Sage said the players had been given permission earlier in the week to seek jobs with other teams.
"For me this is very difficult," said Volostnykh, a native of Russia. "We were like one family. We had a team that could have been the best in the United States, but the situation made it impossible for them to perform. The standings don't tell how good a team this was."
Volostnykh expressed displeasure with Haber's handling of the whole affair. "He gave the players his word that he'd buy the team," the coach said. "The players trusted him."
For his part, Haber felt he made it clear that he had every intention of buying the team, provided all the details could be worked out - which takes time. "I told the players and everybody else, we'd pay them when we take possession of the team," he said. "They are pulling the plug too fast. They know darn well that we're more than capable of handling the Sting financially."
In the end, Haber said, the big stumbling block was the lack of a long-term commitment from Salt Lake City on a place to play.
"I did everything I can," Haber said. "The city said they would want to negotiate a new lease (for Derks Field) for next season, and that worries me." Haber said Derks is not a good soccer stadium, and he felt the city should commit now to improving the park as a soccer facility.
The city's stance, meanwhile, essentially has been that the ball is in Haber's hands. Jill Ramington, Mayor Palmer DePaulis' administrative assistant, said Wednesday that the city was willing to listen to proposals from Haber, but so far hadn't heard any.
Sage suggested that Haber's complaints about the stadium weren't the real issue. "I don't see any basis by which they (the city) have been a roadblock," he said.
In retrospect, Sage said the league probably erred in allowing the Sting's ownership situation to continue unresolved for so long.
"What we probably should have done is called a halt to this thing some time ago," he said. "All that's happened in the last few weeks has not been fair to the community or the players. We're going to make very sure next time that the proper persons are involved for the right reasons."
The Sting entered this season on shaky ground, after last year's owners, the consortium that owns the Salt Lake Trappers baseball team, tried unsuccessfully to sell the soccer team over the winter. As a last-ditch bailout, the Trappers "donated" the team to the non-profit Salt Lake Sting Foundation, formed to run the club until a buyer could be found.
When the Foundation ran out of money, the league took control of the team, again with hopes of finding a buyer. Several groups of investors looked into buying the Sting over the past few weeks, but all eventually shied away for various reasons. In the meantime, the team has showed flashes of good play while playing before skimpy crowds and spending most of the season in the APSL Western Conference cellar.