Soccer parents and players of a Santa Clara youth league were left frustrated — but not defeated — on Tuesday when a judge rejected their second request to stop an NFL takeover of three prized fields next to Levi’s Stadium ahead of Super Bowl 50.
The Santa Clara Youth Soccer League sued the NFL on Monday when crews began altering the soccer fields set to be used as a media village for thousands of reporters at the Feb. 7 championship game. Parents and coaches of young soccer players have alleged that the city of Santa Clara’s deal that loaned the fields to the NFL was illegal and that the kids have no adequate replacement fields in the interim.
“The NFL has shown no restraint at all,” said Craig Larsen, a former coach whose children played in the league. “If they would have honored at least the spirit of the agreement, they would have held off and made sure all legal avenues had been looked at. We have a 600-pound gorilla doing what it wants to do unabated.”
Judge Joseph Huber denied the plaintiffs’ temporary restraining order request Tuesday, but they will have another chance to make their case Monday morning at a preliminary injunction hearing. If the judge slaps the NFL with an injunction, a super-size wrench will be thrown into its Super Bowl preparations.
NFL starts work
Last week, Huber ruled against a similar restraining order request, which would have stopped the city from giving the keys of Santa Clara Youth Soccer Park to the NFL. The football league began work this week, laying down plastic sheets and hauling other materials onto the fields. Crews at the scene of the commotion said Tuesday the next step will be erecting tents.
For the soccer faction, the NFL has already wreaked irrevocable harm to the fields. Coaches and parents are doubtful the facilities will be returned in their world-class condition, saying a section of a contract between the city and NFL only requires high-grade grass to be restored to one of the two natural-grass fields.
“This is the exact kind of thing we predicted — that their money and muscle would take over,” said Michele Ryan, a Santa Clara Unified School District board member who fought against a public subsidy for the construction of Levi’s Stadium for the San Francisco 49ers.
But Brian McCarthy, the NFL’s vice president of communications, said the NFL and 49ers plan to make good on their promise to replace the two natural-grass fields at no cost to the city or youth league.
“Understanding the importance of the park to the citizens of Santa Clara, the NFL has instituted a number of protocols to minimize the impact of our activities on the park fields,” McCarthy said in an e-mailed statement.
Those protocols, McCarthy said, include limiting vehicle access to certain pathways and placing equipment on a layer of plastic to avoid a direct load sinking into the surface.
Santa Clara City Councilwoman Lisa Gillmor, who chairs the city’s soccer committee, said the city manager was mum for months on how Youth Soccer Park would be impacted by the Super Bowl. The council and public didn’t get a glance at the agreement till Dec. 15, years after the city submitted a bid to host the Super Bowl.
Petition ‘defective’
The plaintiffs have alleged the city made the deal illegally because permits for the park allow it to be used only for youth soccer. Altering the usage would necessitate a public hearing and public notices, neither of which the city did.
But in court papers filed Tuesday, City Attorney Ren Nosky and outside counsel argued that the city was well within its rights to enter into the agreement with the NFL. The response briefs called the youth soccer league’s petition “factually defective,” and strongly disputed the legal standing for an injunction.
Gautam Dutta, the attorney representing the youth soccer league, said the city has yet to explore numerous alternatives to the predicament, such as building the media village on the facility’s parking lot rather than its soccer fields.
Soccer coaches say substitute fields being offered nearby are not available on weekends, nor are they regulation size.
Nosky said Tuesday morning the city is working to find additional fields, but he is “not at liberty to share those details now.”
Kim Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KVeklerov
