COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – MLSsoccer.com recently sat down with Rapids managing director Jeff Plush to discuss a number of topics, including the possibilities of Colorado adding a big name, inviting a major club to the Denver area and the Rapids' flirtation with a former Mexican National Team star. Here is a snippet of our conversation.
MLSsoccer.com: A lot of clubs are adding Designated Players. Is there any possibility Colorado will sign one?
Plush: We have had dialogue and we are currently having dialogue. It has to make sense on two fronts. It has to be good on the pitch and good off the pitch; it has to make sense businesswise. It is hard to draw them to Denver and it is a long process, but relationships are being formed.
We made a very real, credible and frankly aggressive offer for [Jared] Borgetti in 2007. We had started that process a long time before [the offer]. [Owner Stan] Kroenke has been clear on it. He would always support what we want to do if it made good sense. He gave us the go-ahead for Borgetti. [The former Mexican National Team striker signed with Cruz Azul instead.] We would have been one of the first to have a DP. Not much has changed. There’s just more activity around it.
There is certainly more of a race to sign players in the last few weeks; it’s really accelerated. I would love to see there is enough evidence that [such moves] would be competitive. We haven’t seen that yet. RSL is a prime example of winning without a Designated Player, without necessarily the highest payroll. You win with 24 players. I think it’s interesting chatter. But the clubs who are successful in our league tend to be clubs that have a team mentality, a team spirit, a Houston or an RSL.
MLSsoccer.com: Does the club have any plans to get a jersey sponsorship?
Plush: We are essentially back to starting the process again. The world has changed pretty dramatically for everyone. We are repositioning our proposition. It’s going well, but we are kind of at square one again. We can move very quickly. Beginning of the 2011 season is likely. It would be very unlikely for something to close in time for something to be on the jersey this season.
MLSsoccer.com: What about organizing a friendly against an international club this season?
Plush: We’d be very keen to have Arsenal come over for a friendly, but that rests with Arsène Wenger, and that’s not what his strategy is at this point. We could get a Mexican club at any time, but our feedback is that that is not what people are looking for.
We are still talking to a couple of clubs [Colorado were in discussions with Valencia and Rangers before both clubs canceled plans for summer tours]. It’s more challenging than we would like. Some still view Denver in the hinterland. We do try to convince people that Denver isn’t in the middle of nowhere. It could be a mid-August timeframe, and it would be a South American club.
