It's Time for the Hunt Sports Group to Leave MLS

I'm not a Columbus Crew supporter. I don't live in Ohio...but I do follow Major League Soccer and i've watched more than a few Crew matches over the past two seasons. I've seen the Crew go from laughing stock of the league to MLS Cup Champions. While there were several factors that helped turn the club around and change their fortunes, there is no doubt that Guillermo Barros Schelotto was a huge part of that success.

If you watched the Crew play, you've seen Schelotto take a corner kick in front of The Nordecke as hundreds of fans raise their arms in the air and bow to their beloved talisman while chanting his name. It's respect and devotion earned by Schelotto through his consistent performance on the pitch and his pivotal role in leading the Crew to the 2008 MLS Cup.

Schelotto joined the Crew in 2007, but it was in 2008 that he began to really shine. He scored 7 goals and 19 assist on his way to winning the League MVP award. He was outstanding in the Crew's 3-1 victory over the New York Red Bulls in the MLS Cup Final, assisting on all three goals. After his incredible season Crew management and the Hunt Sports Group awarded Schelotto by making him the club's first Designated Player.

In 2008 Schelotto earned $375,000. Going in to 2009, the Crew doubled his salary to bring his total earnings up to $775,000 (according to players' union records). Every Crew fan in their right mind would tell you he was worth every penny and at the time, HSG would probably have agreed.

During the 2009 season, Schelotto's played in only 24 matches due to injuries and assumed tactical decisions by new head coach Robert Warzycha in order to protect Schelotto from certain playing surfaces. Despite playing in less matches he still scored 12 goals and had 3 assist and the Crew once again won the Supporter's Shield. This time however, there was no playoff success as the team fell in the first round to Real Salt Lake. Schelotto didn't even play in the first leg of the home and home series and it's a decision that will haunt Warzycha and fans alike.

But there was bigger issue for the Crew beyond their playoff failure. Attendance numbers fluctuated all season despite being one of the best teams in MLS and being the defending champions. Columbus failed sellout Crew stadium once all season and for the home playoff match against RSL only 10,109 fans showed up.

So what is an ownership group to do when attendance is struggling, your supporter's groups are angry with club management and you think you can't afford your star player?

If you are a competent organization you sit down behind close doors and try to come to an agreement to keep that player in your colors.

If you're the Hunt Sport Group, a notoriously cheap organization well known for their focus on balance sheets over the on-the-field success, you tell your club's talisman that if he wants to stay, he needs to take a paycut of over 50% and lose his DP status. It's a joke right? Funny ha ha?

Nope. No joke here, just a decision soaked in incompetence...something HSG knows all about.

Once again the Hunt Sports Group proves that they don't give a damn about their soccer clubs, at least not in the traditional sense of winning matches and trophies. They've run FC Dallas in to the ground, alienating the fan base and building a stadium designed to make HSG money from concerts and events under the guise of being a soccer specific stadium. Just like in Dallas, HSG is going to implode the Crew. GM Mark McCullers has spent the season fighting with the the Crew's biggest supporters and now McCullers and the bean counters above him are completely disrepcting arguably the most influential player in club history. Oh yeah, they built a stage in Crew Stadium too.

It's disgusting. It's shameful and its the Hunt Sports Group at their best. They are a group so powerful and with so much financial impact on MLS that Don Garber and the league have no choice but to stay silent and watch as they made ridiculous decisions and make comical farces out of two of the leagues franchises.

It's time for HSG to sell their teams and leave Major League Soccer. Everything good and positive that Lamar Hunt ever did for the sport of soccer in the United States and for MLS is being tarnished the likes of Clark Hunt, Dan Hunt and John Wagner. You don't care about MLS, you don't care about your clubs. You care only about your money. You care only about making sure you do everything you can to profit at the expense of properly funding your teams and properly funding the people at those teams who are expected market the product and sell tickets. You ham string your own employees in Columbus and Dallas who work so hard to sell your teams to the public by undercutting them with one incompetent management decision after another. Not that you care though, because you are making money thanks to Jimmy Buffet, Edgefest and Kenny Chesney.

If you're a Crew fan none of that really matters of course. All that you're thinking about right now is that Guillermo Barros Schelotto will probably not play in Columbus next season. All that is on your mind is that the Crew's ownership have openly disrespected your most important player and season ticket renewals are due...