Soccer league fails in bid to keep NFL off its Santa Clara turf
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Soccer-league-fails-in-bid-to-keep-NFL-off-its-6738947.php
Soccer parents and players of a Santa Clara youth league were left frustrated but not defeated on Tuesday when a judge rejected their second request to stop an NFL takeover of three prized fields next to Levis Stadium ahead of Super Bowl 50.
The Santa Clara Youth Soccer League sued the NFL on Monday when crews began altering the soccer fields set to be used as a media village for thousands of reporters at the Feb. 7 championship game. Parents and coaches of young soccer players have alleged that the city of Santa Claras deal that loaned the fields to the NFL was illegal and that the kids have no adequate replacement fields in the interim.
The NFL has shown no restraint at all, said Craig Larsen, a former coach whose children played in the league. If they would have honored at least the spirit of the agreement, they would have held off and made sure all legal avenues had been looked at. We have a 600-pound gorilla doing what it wants to do unabated....
This is the exact kind of thing we predicted that their money and muscle would take over, said Michele Ryan, a Santa Clara Unified School District board member who fought against a public subsidy for the construction of Levis Stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.