Church Group to D.C. United: Thou Shalt Not Build!
For months, there have been virtually no developments in United's attempts to build a soccer-specific stadium at Poplar Point, east of the Anacostia River.
That changed yesterday, when Steve Goff's indispensible Soccer Insider ran a post announcing a potential roadblock to stadium development. Given the abundance of Goff's own reporting on the blog, we were surprised when he went and posted a press release in its entirety. The "press release" was titled in forboding capital letters.
MINISTERS ACROSS THE CITY EXPRESS OPPOSITION TO NEW SOCCER STADIUM
DC UNITED LIED TO CHURCH AN YOUTH
Lying to the church an youth sounds pretty bad, but things get considerably worse for United brass and stadium proponents. The DC Black Church Initiative and its President, Rev. Anthony Evans, come out swinging, accusing United of the following offenses: hating black people (especially little kids), being profiteering gentrifiers, and killing kittens en masse. We only made up one of those.
DCBCI goes on to declare that they have notified all churches in Wards 5-8 of United's improprieties and are preparing a massive campaign to halt stadium development for good.
We will not rest until [United] abandon the building of the stadium in Ward 8. We are committed in creating as much opposition necessary to stop this stadium.Should spell doom for stadium development, right? We're not so sure. Most of DCBCI's claims are refuted by United's non-profit ventures. The claims that the organization is anti-African American are tempered by the fact that Victor MacFarlane, the leader of the new ownership group, is black.
DCBCI claims to be "a coalition of 800 African-American and Latino member churches" in their press release. Sounds pretty powerful to us, a group that could mobilize just the sort of grass-roots support to derail negotiations. Then again, maybe not. Goff's wry lede ("Just received this press release. Enjoy!") casts doubt to their influence. The DCenters called several Ward 8 churches and were unable to confirm any ties to DCBCI. A quick google search reveals little about their organization. MacFarlane and team president Kevin Payne didn't seem too worried about the ordeal. Should they be?
We're uncertain of DCBCI's connections. It's always possible that they possess a Stonecutter-like network extending into the far reaches of political power. Or they could just be a couple of individuals trying to dress up a scary press release with a a false air of authority. At the risk of bearing the Stone of Shame, is there anybody out there that could shed light on this issue?
