Union Plan to Build Training Facility Near PPL Park

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Last night the Union held a special fan forum for a group of season ticket holders who accumulated the most points through the team's loyalty points program. Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz, Executive Vice President Dave Rowan, and Union television commentator Bob Rigby participated in the event.

The Union posted live updates and highlights of the event on its Twitter account (check out The Philly Socer Page for highlights). Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the information posted was club friendly fluff (the club is spending money, the new players are ideal fits, the young players thrust into starting roles are ready, etc.) However, there was a bit of news to emerge.

The update that most caught my eye was this:
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@PhilaUnion
Philadelphia Union Sakiewicz: Designs for 20,000 sf training facility close to @PPLPark. Two fields: 1 grass, 1 artificial. Hoping to break ground in 2012.
Feb 24 via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

 

Certainly, this is good news for the team. But that is not why I found it so interesting. The reason I found it noteworthy is that in the course of Sebastien Le Toux figuratively setting fire to everything on his way out the door he took a shot at the Union's training facilities.

From Chris Vito's piece in The Delaware County Times following his sale to Vancouver:

"Being with this team and being a guy, not to build around, but to help this team, was what I wanted. … They must have wanted to sell me for money because they needed money. We don’t have a nice practice facility and that is something they promised since I am here. It’s terrible."

Well, it certainly looks like the Union are in the beginning stages of building that nice practice facility. Le Toux certainly painted a bleak picture of a cash-strapped organization desperate for money. Investing capital, or taking on debt, to build a new training facility would not seem to jibe with that assessment.

I am curious whether this news does anything to win back the minds of Union fans whose opinion of the club changed following the Le Toux interview.

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