In Pre-Super Bowl Skirmish, Soccer Parents Take on NFL – Wall Street Journal

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Burt Field stood outside the fenced-off Santa Clara Youth Soccer Park, lamenting the assortment of Super Bowl tents, mobile trailers, concrete blocks, portapotties and transport carts spread upon the soccer fields he manages.

He watched two people tossing a football back and forth. When a van drove over one field, Mr. Field groaned, snapping photos with a digital camera.

“I have almost gotten into fistfights stopping people from bringing coffee onto these fields,” said Mr. Field, manager of the 800-game schedule for the Santa Clara Youth Soccer League, which sports 1,500 players between 6 and 18 years old.

“I’d go up to teams, and say, ‘Guys! You can’t have Gatorade out here, man!’ ” Mr. Field said, adding the complex for years had enforced a strict water-only rule, designed to protect the smooth but durable blend of Bermuda grass and Kentucky bluegrass on its two natural pitches.

“And now they allow this!”

“This!” is the occupation by the National Football League of his prized fútbol greens for use during Super Bowl 50, which is to be played at the adjacent Levi’s Stadium, home to the 49ers.

In other words, the world’s football is getting trumped by U.S. football.

Soccer players and parents in this soccer-crazed town are kicking mad after Santa Clara handed over their 11-acre complex of world-class, emerald-colored, youth soccer fields to help make room for the hordes of media that cover the Super Bowl spectacle—and to secure the perimeter of Levi’s Stadium for safety reasons.

The two strongest teams in football, the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos, are set to face off at Levi’s Stadium on Feb. 7. The NFL has promised to return the park to the city in its original condition or better by March.

But for now soccer teams say they are being penalized.

And despite the NFL’s assurances, soccer fans fear the two natural grass fields could be ruined by Super Bowl interlopers. They are also concerned the weight of the vehicles and heavy equipment on a third, artificial turf field will leave permanent undulations.

The soccer league even took the NFL and the city to court in an attempt to reclaim the field after getting the boot. A judge sided with the football Goliaths, declining to stop the pigskin incursion. The city has offered up alternative sites for the teams to play. But passions are still running high.

“Our city officials gave into the 49ers and the NFL and let them do whatever they want,” said Gabe Foo, a board member of the soccer league. January games had to be played on opposing teams’ fields, and the league had to decline a chance to host some of the NorCal State Cup Championship games, he said.

The 49ers, who normally play at Levi’s Stadium, said the soccer complex and other municipal land was committed by the city in its 2013 bid for the Super Bowl. The NFL, in court filings, argued that it needs a place to put staff for national and international broadcast media and house its security headquarters. A spokesman for the league said, “the NFL and 49ers have already committed to replace at no cost to the City of Santa Clara the two natural grass fields.”

Soccer has soared in popularity in the U.S. in recent years. The men’s national team performed beyond expectations during the World Cup in 2014 and the U.S. women’s team last year took home their third World Cup championship, beating Japan. Youth soccer is gaining in participation.

But football, with its huge ratings and massive fan base, far outweighs soccer as America’s favorite sport. And nothing quite brings that home like a Super Bowl—annually the most-watched event on television. The field skirmish has reignited old feelings of defensiveness among those in the local soccer community.

“I kind of equate it to like a big corporation versus the mom-and-pop shop,” said Kassie Gray, director of the nonprofit group Female Footballers. “There is definitely kind of an underdog and a big—not a bully, I don’t want to use that word—but a bigger presence, for sure.”

Mr. Field said the soccer teams will keep fighting against the NFL’s “arrogance” but he acknowledged it is hardly on equal footing with football.

“The NFL is a multibillion industry, OK, I get it,” he said. “The fact of the matter is we are the flea on the back of the elephant.”

Veronica Cashman, a youth soccer coach from Santa Clara, equated it to an unwelcome guest taking over your home.

“It’s like somebody basically moving into your house and destroying it,” she said.

Marisa Orozco, mother of eight-year-old Amaya, a competitive player with the league, said the seizure of the field has left some parents scrambling.

“She will never be a 49er fan,” Ms. Orozco said of her daughter. “She has gone to a lot of the City Hall meetings, and she can’t just understand—why isn’t there an alternative, or, why aren’t they sharing?”

Santa Clara officials argue they have committed no penalty. The city, which owns the fields, struck an agreement in 2013 to let the NFL use the fields as part of its bid.

“It’s cool that there are people coming from all around the county, but those are our fields,” said Sophie Mendoza, a 15-year-old high school sophomore and a forward for nationally-ranked Santa Clara Sporting 99 Girls Green Team. “We deserve to have a place to play just as much as the professionals.”

The Super Bowl scrum is only the latest skirmish between youth soccer and the NFL in Santa Clara. The 49ers sought to lease the existing fields from the city, a proposal abandoned after soccer players and parents showed up en masse to a city council meeting.

Mr. Field said he might have treated the soccer fields differently, had he known: “We would have had tailgating out there, some barbecues.”

On Sunday, he says he’ll probably skip the game and work in the yard. “Just not interested,” he said. “I am sure it is a big day for everybody else.”

Write to Alejandro Lazo at alejandro.lazo@wsj.com