My colleague at the Florida Soccer Report, Johnathan Starling has penned a great column about some red flags he sees with Jacksonville’s Super League Announcement.

On Thursday, June 22^nd, the group surrounding the Jacksonville Women’s Super League team made their grand presentation for the city of Jacksonville to see. However, in watching the presentation I saw four huge red flags that need to be addressed.

Red Flag 1: Mayor Elect Donna Deegan Front & Center at the Presentation
Now you may question why I am including this red flag when the mayor elect being at your event is something that should be praised? In fact, I was ecstatic to see Mayor Elect Deegan at the press conference and she came off in an exceptionally positive light, at times looking the most enthusiastic person at the event (outside of having to hold up an orange Jacksonville Super League kit, those in northeast Florida will understand). Mayor Elect Deegan’s stating parallels of the USL Super League announcement dropping the same day she won the Jacksonville city runoff race (May 16th) almost made it sound like fate. The jab around stadium discussions in the future however was a red cloud over this red flag.

The biggest red flag I have with Mayor Elect Deegan being so front and center for the announcement is this: there are still too many persistent rumors where the stadium is actually going to be, mainly St. Johns County still being seen as a viable option. Steve Livingstone can talk about a community-based stadium with access to all (going along with my theme of soccer preferred stadium instead of soccer specific stadium) with a 15,000 seat capacity all he wants, but it is simply talk without any action. It is my belief you don’t even have this announcement in full until your stadium plans are locked in and approved. A press release with a local morning show TV junket would have been more than sufficient until you could have the big celebration announcement, and they’ve already done the TV circuit since the initial league announcement.

Let us not forget the Jacksonville Armada have been completely quiet since, despite a positive city council vote, about a stadium in downtown Jacksonville. Could Deegan use this vote and give and transfer that deal to a CEO who is based in Jacksonville along with one of the city’s favorite sons? Considering Deegan is community based, and Robert Palmer only cares about selling mortgages, it might be an outside possibility.

Until something is announced the ownership group has put Mayor Elect Deegan in an awful situation. The threats of St. Johns County in private negotiations could force Deegan to give a less than ideal deal for the city angering the voter base. This negotiation is also going to go on while the city of Jacksonville figures out what to do with the recently renamed Everbank Field renovation that is due shortly. If the team isn’t in Jacksonville to start it isn’t Jacksonville USL Super League that comes out in the most negative light, it’s the actual mayor. I know some would consider it a waste of resources but I’d go one further, if this team builds in St. Johns County I’d have the city of Jacksonville sue to have the name Jacksonville removed from the team name. Here’s a good suggestion if it came to that: First Coast FC/SC to encompass all within northeast Florida (FCFC/FCSC…at least the name would rhyme). Personally, I’d rebrand the club that anyway, just to show your willingness to commit to the entire region.

Read more at Beyond the 90’s, Florida Soccer Report.

Picture credit from Jacksonville Super League Twitter account.