Tim Kelly and Marshall Brock of CFC
Two owners of the Chattanooga Football Club say the popular local soccer team is staying put at Finley Stadium.
Tim Kelly and Marshall Brock spoke to the Civitan Club on Friday shortly after CFC announced it was joining the National Premier Soccer League.
Mr. Kelly said, "We are very close to working out a multi-year deal at Finley." He said the new arrangement will be much more favorable to CFC.
He said the owners of the club are "very customer oriented." He said they earlier had some comments to stadium officials about improving the customer experience "and that did not go well." However, Mr. Kelly said, "Things are much better now."
They fielded questions about the new kid in town - the Chattanooga Red Wolves that plan to open play at David Stanton Field at Chattanooga Christian School. That pro team says it will have built its own soccer-owner field at a yet-undisclosed site for play the following year.
Mr. Kelly said one repercussion of the new competition is that all the CFC players will be paid and the team will no longer be able to use top-flight college soccer players.
The speakers said the Red Wolves will mainly be recruiting "the same players" while CFC will have to be out beating the bushes to find unknown but promising talent to bring to Chattanooga.
They said the CFC plans to hold its admission price to $10.
With the new video board, they will be able to show replays of key plays during the match.
Asked if their league, speaking in baseball terms, is A, Double A or Triple A. They said about Double A.
They said CFC got a recent infusion of energy and funding when the six original partners added Barry Large and five others from the Lamp Post Group.
CFC plans to schedule some exhibition matches and likely will start league play in March. The season will stretch all the way to October.