Chargers slam San Diego’s latest stadium proposal

And so the Chargers will continue to pursue options in Los Angeles, with San Diego becoming the Plan B.

During a meeting that lasted a little less than 90 minutes Monday, San Diego leaders updated Goodell, NFL Vice President Eric Grubman and the league’s six-owner Los Angeles committee on the progress they are making on a new Chargers stadium in Mission Valley.

“Both history and current polling show it will be extraordinarily hard to persuade voters to devote hundreds of millions of General Fund tax dollars to a stadium, but in the end any funding plan is going to be dragged down into the quicksand of the City’s legally inadequate environmental review process – a process that will be bogged down in court for years before it is eventually declared illegal”.

“We’re ready, willing and able to meet the NFL and Chargers’ deadline to have an election by January 12”. No vote on a move is expected at next week’s meetings. The Chargers played their first season in Los Angeles in 1960 before moving to San Diego.

The meeting, and release of the draft EIR, come three days after the city’s top financial official sent a memo to City Council members that estimated the cost of operating Qualcomm Stadium over the next 20 years will range between $259 million and $282 million, depending on the factors included in the calculation. Chargers attorney Mark Fabiani at that time called Dealy’s project “fantastical”, with “mythical skyscrapers, mythical prices and a mythical stadium”. Holding up a checking account filled with season ticket deposits makes the specter of L.A. that rather more imminent, and would definitely improve the strain on these cities to for a brand new stadium.

Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who has avoided any public comment about his situation, has given no indication he wants to stay in St. Louis. The Chargers, who appear eager to move to Los Angeles, will update all owners on Tuesday on their joint plan with the archrival Oakland Raiders to build a stadium in Carson.

[RELATED: Check out the latest Charger stadium concepts presented by the city].

Except: There is one way that the city of San Diego could get out of maintaining any kind of football stadium at all.

If the Chargers and the city of San Diego won’t even sit at the table, then we might as well assume that there is going to be a breakup coming.

Some NFL owners already have predicted one or two teams will move to Los Angeles for the 2016 season. The judge overturned a law that was voted into place by St. Louis residents in 2002 by a 10-point margin and approved by residents of St. Louis County by a 44-point spread in 2004. If the league decided no teams can relocate until at least 2017, such a move also could buy the teams’ current cities time to find solutions.

The Chargers say that’s a house of cards, a foundation that won’t survive the legal challenges that are sure to come.