The Hartford Courant reported this morning that the owners of Hartford Athletic, a would-be 2019 USL Championship club, are in some very hot water over making improper contributions in recent Connecticut election campaigns. If it turns out that the allegations against Hartford Sports Group’s owners are true, then the entity that owns Dillon Stadium, where Hartford Athletic are supposed to play, would be legally barred from allowing the club to play there.
HSG managed to obtain about $14 million in public financing to refurbish the historic stadium. While those renovations should probably continue, they’ll have to be the benefit of someone else if H.
This appears to put the USL in a very uncomfortable spot. It seems likely they might have already been aware of the pending campaign finance charges, as HSG has been in touch with Connecticut’s election oversight body since early November. The club has no branding to speak of and have not signed any players, though they did sign Jimmy Nielsen to be their head coach. The club released ticketing options for Dillon Stadium for 2019 earlier this week, but that appears to be for naught now.
If HSG gets booted from Dillon Stadium, my guess would be they get the boot from USL, also. It’s unlikely any of this gets resolved before the 2019 season kicks off in about four months, either. That creates a scheduling headache again for the league, which is almost old hat by now. This could all blow over, of course, but given the amount of potential skeletons in Bruce Mandell’s closet, I doubt it.
Have a great weekend!
