For any dedicated sports fan, the off-season is hard. Many actually spend more time obsessing about their team during the off-season than during the season itself, for little or no time is spent with the holy trinity: pre-game drinking and singing, game time singing and drinking, and post-game drinking and drinking (and singing).

For Timbers fans, this off-season has been action packed: not only did the Timbers do poorly last season, owner Merritt Paulson’s bid for a Major League Soccer expansion franchise has made the news on nearly a weekly basis. I’ve been throwing 1,000 word posts up here on the regular, which is quite amazing for a lot of reasons. Tons of PTFC2k9 news, and yet more MLS2PDX Task Force meetings, news and information, below the fold.

Mark your calendars!
The United Soccer League released the 2009 schedule for Division 1 a few weeks ago. I won’t list off every game, but here are the basics, culled from portlandtimbers.com and other sources:

For PTFC in PGE Park, there will be seven Miller Lite Thursdays, two Friday games, four Saturday games and two Sunday games. The Timbers will be on Fox Soccer Channel (North America’s sole soccer specific station not trapped on satellite) three times: the May 14th home game against the Rochester Rhinos, the June 19th home game against the Minnesota Thunder, and away at the Charleston Battery on August 28th. The regular season home opener is April 30th against Vancouver. Last season PTFC had a deal with the comcast local sports channel to broadcast a few more home games, but nothing regarding 2009 has been announced yet.

Even better, the Timbers have announced a pre-season game against the San Jose Earthquakes in San Jose on March 14th. I expect at least a handful of games against the University of Portland Pilots team, a team that scrapped and fought with the Shittle Sounders last weekend. Also spotted, members of the Sounders ‘supporters group’, lighting off flares. At a preseason game, against a college team. Fuckin’ amateurs man. They’ve got a lot to learn. Other USL sides have multiple preseason games against each other, MLS sides and college teams announced, but PTFC is once again behind the curve in this respect. I have no idea why, but we never play as many preseason games as other teams in the league.

MLS2PDX news:
Here in Portland the Task Force meetings continue, and news coverage has been at least partially attentive. Perhaps the two most important meetings to occur in this entire process (save the final vote in City Council) are on the same day this week: on February 24th the State Legislature is hearing public comments about a House Bill that has yet to be numbered, about authorizing a special payroll tax for professional athletes.

1:00 -3:00 pm
House Sustainability & Economic Development Committee, Hearing Room E
Oregon State Capitol, 900 Court St., NE, Salem, Oregon

An hour later, the MLS/AAA Baseball task force will hear public comments, to round up their discussion and prepare to render their recommendation to the City Council, due March 11th:

The Portland Building, 1120 SW 5th Ave., Room C
The Task Force meets 4:00 — 5:30pm, public testimony will begin at 6:00pm, sign up for testimony begins at 3:30pm

Here are some documents: Meeting PowerPoints for the Baseball stadium proposal the MLS Stadium proposal, notes from Meeting 6, the agenda for this meeting (#8) and the official ‘deliberation questions.’ The Timbers Army is planning to show up in force, as always. I’m all in favor of public debate, but please, regardless of which side you’re on, don’t stand up to talk unless you have something coherent to say. That means keep your seats Smiley and TotalNerd, capiche?

Elsewhere in the MLS expansion world, life is getting a bit more complicated. Ottawaaaa is still rolling around and talkin’ some smack and, like every other expansion city, claiming that MLS Brass have promised them a team if they build a stadium. Every city, including PDX, has heard such things, so take that as you will.

The current global financial crisis is hitting everyone, as if you didn’t know. Roman Abramovich, billionaire playboy owner of Chelsea FC, is significantly less of a billionaire, and laid off most of his scouting staff. NBA teams are no longer coveting expiring contracts as chips for player trades, but holding on to them as salary relief. The Porn industry wants a piece of the buyout, and FC Barcelona is taking a long hard look at their commitment to the Miami expansion effort.

“We want to enter the American league, but not at the cost of financial risk,” Olive told Spanish website Sport.es. “The chances of us not joining are higher than when we announced our interest.”
…
“We’ll evaluate whether or not the change in the economy in the United States renders our model still viable,” Oliver noted.

Barcelona is at the top of La Liga, and — this weekend’s embarrassing loss to Espanyol notwithstanding — a juggernaut of awesome this season. Nonetheless, their board and their voting constituents are questioning whether or not the $20million investment in a Miami franchise is a better investment than buying replacements for Thierry Henry and other stars that are aging out of top flight competition. $20 million is a 50% stake in an MLS team, but it’s also two or three young prospects ready for La Liga immediately. FC Barcelona may have finally realized that the Latin population in Miami that group principal Marcelo Claure keeps reminding us about, isn’t 1 million Catalonians.

Other than some extraordinary rumor mongering about the St. Louis bid and the Vancouver bid, that’s all that is flying around about MLS expansion. The MLS season kicks off on March 19th, so I expect announcements on day one or slightly before. Grab your asscheeks and hang on for the ride!

ROSTER NEWS
The Timbers have made a few more roster additions and subtractions since I last checked in:
Tommy ‘Two Card’ Poltl is back on board to inspire the defense with his sharp elbows and two footed tackles, adding to his 4 years as the pint sized defensive midfield enforcer for PTFC. He’s our very own Jack Bauer, except, well, he does his damage without guns or an unhelathy suspension of international law disbelief (and, at 5’8″, is still taller than Kiefer Sutherland).
He’s Mean!
He’s Hard!
He’s got a yellow card!
Tommy Poltl! Tommy Poltl!
Dieumerci Vua, a 20 year old Defender and Congolese National is a bit of a mystery, but the interweb shows signs that he’s played for Catania of the Italian Serie A, and somewhere in France before that. And yes, that is a funny name. If all our facts are straight, he may be a solid addition to our back line.

Keith Savage, a 23 year old midfielder and Florida native, who will no doubt star in many evocative chants due to his name, played for Chivas USA in the MLS last season after being drafted 43rd after a distinguished career at the University of West Florida.

George Josten, a 22 year old Forward landed a contract with the Timbers after impressing at the open tryouts. Josten comes to Portland after being selected by the Columbus Crew in the 2008 MLS SuperDraft (no, don’t ask me why it’s a SuperDraft). He was a standout at Gonzaga University and has seen USL action before when he spent some time with the (then USL2) Cleveland City Stars on loan from Columbus.

Midfielder Josh Cameron, 22, joins the Timbers for his Rookie season after also catching the Front Office eye during open tryouts. Cameron is an Oregon State Alum and Gresham native who attended Centennial High School. He may be the second coming of Bryan Jordan, who rocked at OSU before rocking here with the Timbers and moving on to the LA Galaxy. That makes three Camerons (Camerones?) on the roster: Defenders Cameron Knowles and Cameron Dunn, and this new kid, Josh Cameron.

The Timbers also put Bryan Little out of his misery, after one season of warming up on the sidelines and scant substitute play. That Coach Wilkinson never developed much faith in Little became obvious when Wilkinson shifted defender Leo Griffin from left back to left mid in midseason (a position Griffin had never played) instead of inserting Little into the starting lineup.

So, the roster looks like this (new kids in bold):
Keepers:
none
Defenders:
Cameron Knowles, Scot Thompson, Cameron Dunn, Dieumerci Vua
Midfielders:
Miguel Guante, Lawrence Olum, Kiki Lara, Bryan Little, Johan Claesson, Tony McManus, Brian Farber, Keith Savage, Josh Cameron, Tommy Poltl
Forwards:
Takayuki Suzuki(?), Antouman Jallow, Jason McLaughlin (m/f), Keita Mandjou George Josten Still no keeper news, but this nearly has the look of a starting squad. I really hope the Timbers are not waiting to score a goalkeeper on loan from an MLS team; that really didn’t work out well for us last season. We traded for Chase Harrison, where did he go? He had the makings of a talented keeper. We also need a few more defenders, but that will come soon.

Adieu again, from your Timbers blogger at large.

28 replies on “PTFC2K9: the Tension is Building”

  1. Steve Cronin was just cut by the Galaxatives, and rumor has it he is coming to Portland. Which would mean we’d have at least one keeper on the roster (one with MLS experience to boot, who wouldn’t be on loan).

    Also I resent the implication that I would be unruly at a city hall meeting. I resent it so much I’ma go smash some storefront windows.

  4. Very good Smiley. You’ve managed to totally discredit yourself. If you are correct I’ll instruct my congressman to put the special needs school you attend first on the chopping block K?

  5. Oh FFS Smiley is back? Peddling more nonsense of the top order. Seriously $150 Mil in General Fund revenue? You are seriously divorced from all reality at this point.

  6. You should have read the legislation before you inserted your foot in your mouth Garrett. I posted the link to the bill.

    Time for you to contact your congressman.

  7. Smiley it is you who is inserting serious foot in mouth. Seriously you saw $150 million and freaked out. Do you know how to read legislation? Did YOU even read the legislation? Are you aware of the history of this bill?

    You see folks Smiley took this sentence: “If the incremental { – baseball – } { + athletic + }
    tax revenues in a year substantially exceed the amount reasonably
    required to amortize a loan of $150 million over a period of 30
    years with interest, the excess may be retained by the state” and interpreted it to mean that $150 million dollars being used from the general fund.

    That’s a leap of delusional proportions.

    The estimated $$ to be raised over the 30 years from MLS players salaries is $5 million for the stadium fund.

    Smiley has all sorts of BS fantasies of how the Paulson’s are going to suddenly report all of their income here in Oregon and therefore suddenly explanded the bond for stadium renovation to the maximum of $150 Million. I am not sure the point of this would be.

    But lets say Paulson did choose to do this. Explain to me how this is taking any money out of the general fund?

    Smiley are you going to be testifying tommorrow or are you an internet keyboard kommando with 7 different Oregonlive accounts? Please introduce yourself to me.

  8. Oh and to further pre-emptively kill off Smiley’s further attempts at bamboozlement in pursuit of whatever agenda he has. Here is a salient list of conditions from the legislation that are required prior to any bond being funded by the state:

    “The Director of the Oregon Department of
    Administrative Services may not execute a grant agreement
    authorized by ORS 184.404 until the director has determined that:
    (1) The City of Portland has made a written request to the
    director to execute and deliver the grant agreement;
    (2) A Major League Baseball { + or Major League Soccer + }
    franchise has agreed to locate and be based in Portland and has
    entered into a legally binding commitment to remain in Portland
    for at least the term of the grant agreement;
    (3) All funding to build the major league stadium that is not
    based on the grant agreement has been committed;
    (4) No grantee is both a public body and a guarantor for the
    repayment of bonds or other indebtedness that is to be repaid
    through use of grant moneys;
    (5) The Oregon Department of Administrative Services has
    provided a written report regarding the estimated and actual
    incremental { – baseball – } { + athletic + } tax revenues
    to, and has solicited comments from, the advisory committee
    described in subsection (6) of this section relating to the
    following provisions of the proposed grant agreement”

    I think you can see that no small children will be denied education nor will anyone be thrown into the street as the Smiley’s of the world will have you believe. Facts matter people.

  9. The fact is that the funds come from the Oregon General Fund and the legislation states that it shall be up to a limit of $150 million.

    “(f) Require the Director of the Oregon Department of Administrative Services to request that the Legislative Assembly appropriate an amount equal to the estimated incremental { – baseball – } { + athletic + } tax revenues from the General Fund to the Major League Stadium Grant Fund established in ORS 184.408 so that those moneys may be disbursed under the grant agreements authorized by this section;”

    Further, the funding amount is based on the state taxes on wages of not just players, but anyone associated with Shortstop LLC, including Henry Merritt Paulson Jr and is son Henry Merritt Paulson III, and their spouses if filing jointly.

    As stated in the bill:

    “(A) The Oregon personal income tax revenues that are generated from the Oregon personal income tax liabilities shown on the income tax returns filed by the members of a professional athletic team engaged in Major League Baseball { + or Major League Soccer + }, including revenues that are generated from the tax liabilities of spouses of members of a professional athletic team engaged in Major League Baseball { + or Major League Soccer + } if the tax liabilities are reported on a joint return;”

    Members of a team defined:

    “‘Member of a professional athletic team’ means an athlete or other individual rendering service to a professional athletic team if the compensation of the athlete or other individual exceeds { – $50,000 – } { + $40,000 + } in a tax year.”

  10. To fill in the details of this Merritt Paulson Fund PR piece, without the omission of the House Bill information:

    Date: Tuesday-February 24
    Time: 1:00 P.M.
    Room: HR E
    Possible Introduction of Committee Measures

    Public Hearing and Possible Work Session
    HB 2531 FIRST PUBLIC HEARING: Expands purpose of Major League Stadium Grant Fund to include financing, developing, constructing and furnishing major league stadium designed for use by Major League Soccer team.

    http://www.leg.state.or.us/09reg/agenda/we…

  11. So, basically Smiley, you just got served and you are continuing on with the same BS.

    So Smiley, when do you plan on telling us how Finn’s a$$ taste?

  12. I reported the facts of the bill, Garrett.

    House Bill 2531 authorizes funding of up to $150 million from the State of Oregon General Fund to fund stadiums.

    Don’t worry. You’ve got no competition for Finn’s private parts.

  13. No Smiley…I could exactly quote, but it’s at the top of the page. In your original assertion you failed to include those words of “up to.” Finnegan accurately pointed out we’re talking MLS player salaries as opposed to MLB players salaries $150 million will never even come close to being achieved. At the end of the 30 years it will be closer to $5 million.

    Those little words you left out inaccurately make it seem like the state is pulling $150 million out of the general fund, which they’re not. I have no doubt in my mind you meant it to be misleading, but that’s beside the point.

    It’s also something to point out that the $5 million you say will be taken out of the general fund is $5 million that won’t exist without the players being here. So either way it’s money that will never be in our general fund regardless. Without the players there are no salaries.

    Nice try though.

  14. It does authorize $150 million. Up to and including. House Bill 2531 certainly could cause the state to pay $150 million from the general fund.

    And we are not talking about taxes just on player salaries. The bill states that funds are draw from the General Fund to match the taxes paid by anyone associated with the teams, and their spouses if filing jointly.

    I might point out that no one else who works for a wage in Oregon would be here if they could not find work, but since they do live and earn wages here, they pay their share for the schools and roads and everything else that you seem to think that employees of Shortstop LLC should be exempt from.

  15. pissing off smiley is fun. it’s like arguing revolutionary politics with someone who derived their ethos from the liner notes of a Rage Against the Machine album.

    I take it back smiley, go to the meetings: you’ll get yer smackdown from the task force themselves.

  17. No Smiley you selectively cherrypick facts and then when confronted with your bamboozling, you effectively “double-down” in the grand tradition of Rush and Hannity refusing to admit you are being patently dishonest and just yell the same thing even louder despite the fact YOUR OWN LINK proved you wrong.

    So yes, the language of the bill says “up to $150 million” as you point out. The language also says that whatever is laid out for stadium renovation/construction must be paid back in it’s entirety through…the salary taxes of the players and coaches involved (and I guess conceivably the Paulsons but I doubt he actually draws a salary as owner of Shortstop LLC but if he does than his salary, whatever that is, gets thrown into the mix and it still would get us nowhere near the $150 million). NOWHERE near.

    And this is where you completely go off the rails. You are either being purposefully dishonest or you didn’t even read the legislation you cited.

    Can you please explain to me how, in any reasonable reading of this bill, you get enough on the salary side to reach $150 million? Which if you do a quick back of the napkin math – the rate they are probably using is the top Oregon income tax rate of 9%. That means that in your paranoid world you are assuming a $5 million dollar a year revenue stream ( for simplicity sake I went with $5 million X 30 years = $150 million) from taxes on players, coaches and owners salaries. That would mean that the total salary obligation for MLS would be somewhere in the range of $45 million a year. Tell me how you get to $45 million a year when we are talking about a league that has a total salary cap (that means all of the salaries combined from 24 players) is $2.3 million a year. You are about $42 mill short bud. But you knew that didn’t you?

    So what happens is that the egghead accountants in the Dept of Revenue and DAS get together and pour over the projected salaries of players and associated individuals and come up with a projection.

    Once they come up with what the projected revenue from these taxes would look like over 30 years they release the money. Then this money is paid pack in it’s entirety over that time period. There isn’t a single cent spent that is not going to be recouped.

    And if that is not enough folks there is language in this bill that specifically releases the State of Oregon from any debt or obligation should something happen in the next 30 years:

    “The grant agreements do not create an
    indebtedness of the State of Oregon in violation of section 7,
    Article XI of the Oregon Constitution. If a provision of a grant
    agreement is construed to have the effect of creating a debt in
    violation of section 7, Article XI of the Oregon Constitution,
    the provision is void.”

    Can we agree case closed?

  18. Finnegan, what is in the statute is simply that the state matches the income taxes paid by employees of shortstop LLC with a subsidy contribution to the Stadium Fund from the General Fund. There is nothing in the law or House Bill 2531 referring to that money being paid back, as you imply. If you do think that employees and their spouses should pay any more than their normal share of state taxes, then you should go to that hearing tomorrow and try and get that language inserted into the bill.

    Can we call your mind closed too?

  19. Sigh… Smiley that is not what it says and it is not what I implied you are changing the topic because you have no defense for your earlier assertions.

    Im sorry that you got confused by my term “paid back”. But what the bill calls for is an initial subsidy from the general fund to the stadium fund because obviously the players salaries won’t even start until 2011 and in order to remodel PGE Park for a 2011 MLS start need they need the estimated $5 million from this bill. That $5 Million is based on 30 years of player and staff income taxes. Then when the income taxes start coming in they are essentially “paying back” the $5 million dollar upfront subsidy.

    But I suspect you already knew that to and are attempting to confuse folks who don’t have the time or inclination to read dense Leg. language (you are apparently one of them).

  20. http://www.oregonlive.com/forums/portlandb…

    Nice troll, eh?

    We’re talking about business that would not set foot in this state without the improvements, for which this is probably more sensible than the precedent originally set by a business that settled in Medford… and USL players get paid chicken feed on good days.

    Most of all, if there were a straight loan from the general fund, there would be NO reference in the legislation to financing costs. It’s called a bond sale, just like the original SB5 plan.

    Have a good day.

  21. Finnegan, there is nothing in the Stadium funding bill that asks anyone who works for athletic teams to pay the money back. Resorting to telling lies indicates that you have lost this argument and you know it.

    Pounder, taxes on wages are to pay for roads, schools, parks and the like. The tax revenue on wages from people who work for Shortstop LLC go to pay their share of services that they are using just like everyone else.

    Also, Pounder, House Bill 2531 is not a bond sale. It is funding towards paying off bonds. Player salaries may be low, but HB 2531 also includes owners and anyone else who works for Shortstop LLC, and their spouses. You should read the bill first if you want to discuss it further.

  22. You’re too busy mastering your sockpuppets to read ANYTHING you post, much less post about.

    First you tried to infer that this was a loan from the general fund, now you’re chastizing me when the bond sale is the VEHICLE, not the legislation.

    Pathetic again. Keep bringing the laughs.

  24. I’m looking forward to the bill passing, Smiley advocating for an AG investigation, and then Smiley approaching his dad and expecting pops to personally pay for all expenses involved.

  25. Any news on Timbers matches on the radio (and not some crappy AM station that powers down to 5 W after sunset and is run by a hamster on a treadmill) this season?

  27. Teh internets are fine and all, but doesn’t Portland have a couple of SportsTalk stations? Can’t we get local sports on the air? (Plus, it’d be nice to watch a match live and listen to AndyMac’s commentary/play-by-play as well.)

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