Photo by Paul Frederiksen.

Despite hinting that it would settle for anything from College Park to Baltimore as an alternative to its aging digs at RFK Stadium, D.C. United looks poised to remain in the District for the 2012 season.

The Post’s Soccer Insider reports that team and city officials are working to sign a new lease agreement for RFK, where D.C. United has played since its inaugural season in 1996. It seems that despite the team’s hopes of finding a newer stadium to play in for the future, options in Maryland haven’t yet been fleshed out:

On the topic of the stadium search, Payne said: “There’s nothing new to report. In Maryland, the process is that there will be discussions during this [general assembly] session about some money to further study the stadium opportunity in Baltimore. We’re not the ones doing that; that’s something the Maryland Stadium Authority will be pursuing as part of their study process.

“Here in D.C., we continue to talk with a number of government leaders. We had a meeting last week with the chairman of the Council to talk about process. We’re confident that the District of Columbia and its leadership wants us to remain here and wants to find a way to work with us to accomplish that. We continue to work on parallel charts.”

None of this is to say that D.C. United will stay in the District long term, though. Team and league officials have repeatedly expressed frustration that there’s no apparent political will amongst city leaders to help the team out; the city has said that it has no money to help finance the construction of a new stadium for the team. (And before you go and ask why the District can’t use it’s $240 million surplus on a stadium, know that city officials have said that the money needs to go to savings.)