By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
So much for the Las Vegas soccer fairy tale of American soccer legend Eric Wynalda taking Las Vegas from the minor leagues of soccer to the big leagues of Major League Soccer.
Las Vegas Lights owner Brett Lashbrook fired Wynalda Wednesday afternoon and he maintained in an interview with LVSportsBiz.com that it was not related to a cost-savings move or a pandemic-related issue.
“Of course he’ll say no (it wasn’t cost-related),” Wynalda told LVSportsBiz.com Wednesday evening. Wynalda said Lashbrook wanted him to take a pay cut of about 70 percent. In the end, it was a mutual decision, said Wynalda, who expects to be in Europe in a coaching position in three to six weeks.
“I wanted to make it about soccer. Brett Lashbrook wanted to make it a show. His ideology is different from mine,” Wynalda said. “A lot of owners are under immense cost pressure right now.”
Both Lashbrook, a publicly charismatic lawyer who created the United Soccer League team in downtown Las Vegas in 2017, and Wynalda, a popular and credible figure in U.S. soccer known for his swagger and confidence, have strong personalities.
But Wynalda said Lashbrook was obsessed with creating soccer as an entertaining show at Cashman Field. Wynalda recalled Lashbrook’s words after the Lights beat a Portland team, 1-0, during the 2019 season last summer. It was after The Renaissance Companies, which is trying to broker a deal between a deep-pocketed investor and the city of Las Vegas to build a new soccer stadium in downtown, entered the scene to try to move the Lights from USL to Major League Soccer, Wynalda recalled.
“(Lashbrook) looked at me and said, ‘1-0? Can you get any more fucking boring?’ This was about three points,” Wynalda recalled. “Brett wanted to be entertaining. He wanted all this other stuff.”
Lashbrook said he didn’t wake up Wednesday thinking he was going to fire Wynalda, who received a nice birthday wish from the team only a week ago.
Lashbrook is hardly a stranger to firing his staff. He terminated his PR guy Ryan Greene and several other workers after season one, which included the team’s first coach — colorful and sometimes crazy El Chelis (Jose Luis Sanchez Sola) — leaving during the inaugural season.
Even with a pandemic gripping the country, Wynalda probably can find work in the soccer world rather easily. He’s an accomplished former U.S. national team player and polished network TV commentator who has strong opinions about how to rejuvenate the sagging U.S. men’s soccer program.
The Lights won 11, lost 15 and tied 8 during the 34-game season under Wynalda in 2019. But the team drew more than 7,000 fans a game and was known for its wacky team promotions like hiring a helicopter company to drop money on the field at halftime of games. In season one, the Lights were a miserable 8-19-7 in 2018.
Firing Wynalda certainly can’t help Lashbrook’s plan to sell the team to hedge fund manager billionaire Seth Klarman, , who is working with San Diego County-based deal maker Floyd Kephart in hopes of striking an agreement with the city of Las Vegas to rebuild the Cashman Center area and Las Vegas Boulevard corridor while also building a new MLS soccer stadium. Wynalda had the big-time name recognition to help take the Lights to the big leagues of MLS.
Now, Lashbrook will have to hire someone else to do that.
Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter and Facebook. Like LVSportsBiz.com on Facebook. And but LVSportsBiz.com publisher Alan Snel’s new book, Bicycle Man: Life of Journeys just released.