The World Cup has gone.
The noise was incredible.
Full stadiums.
Global television.
Sponsors everywhere.
For a few weeks America became the centre of football.
Then the circus packed up.
Now comes the important bit.
What happens next?
Because tournaments create attention.
Clubs create belonging.
And belonging is much harder to build.
That is where the Los Angeles Aztecs come in.
And, somehow, where I come in too.
I Am Not the Story
The Los Angeles Aztecs existed long before me.
Johan Cruyff played for them.
George Best played for them.
Rinus Michels coached them.
They were glamorous.
Chaotic.
Brilliant.
Very Los Angeles.
I did not create that history.
I have no intention of pretending I did.
I see my role differently.
I am the catalyst.
The person trying to bring the pieces back around one table.
Supporters.
Football people.
Investors.
Developers.
Cities.
Brands.
Land.
History.
Culture.
Then build something strong enough that it eventually does not need me.
That is the Matchmaker bit.
I have been doing versions of it most of my working life.
Why Me?
It is a fair question.
I am not a billionaire.
I am not a stadium architect.
I am not a property developer.
I am not pretending I should pick the team on Saturday afternoon.
Good.
Football has suffered enough from owners believing their bank balance makes them experts at everything.
My value is different.
I understand football.
I understand brands.
I understand supporters.
I understand how audiences grow.
I understand how culture becomes commercially valuable without having to be commercially manufactured.
I was an FA-registered intermediary.
I have worked around players, agents, clubs and the football industry.
I built Hairbond from scratch.
I rebuilt Stylo Matchmakers around one of football’s great old boot brands.
I built Football Is For The Fans because I became increasingly uncomfortable with who appeared to be gaining control of the game.
And I have spent years studying football history.
Not because I want to live in the past.
Because history tells you what survives.
And what doesn’t.
Football Is For The Fans
Football Is For The Fans did not begin in a boardroom.
It began with frustration.
Football was becoming richer.
But somehow supporters seemed to own less of it.
Broadcast deal by broadcast deal.
Takeover by takeover.
Franchise by franchise.
We became customers.
Engagement became something to monetise.
Loyalty became something to price.
The people who had created football’s value were increasingly being asked to pay more to access it.
So I kept coming back to one question.
Who is football actually for?
That question eventually matters more than any manifesto.
Because protesting is easy.
Building an alternative is harder.
At some point you have to stop telling people the system is wrong.
You have to put something better on the table.
For me, the Los Angeles Aztecs are that opportunity.
Tampa
I did not want to criticise American soccer from Britain.
That would have been lazy.
So I went to America.
I attended the USL Winter Summit in Tampa.
I listened.
I met people.
I studied the franchise model.
The economics.
Territories.
Expansion.
League structures.
Ownership.
Stadium development.
The American game changed some of my thinking.
Because America does plenty well.
Capital.
Ambition.
Facilities.
Commercial execution.
Sports development.
Real estate.
Presentation.
The willingness to think big.
European football could learn from some of it.
But I came away believing something else too.
American soccer does not have a quality problem.
It does not have an enthusiasm problem.
It certainly does not have a money problem.
The gap is culture.
And culture is bloody difficult to franchise.
You Cannot Award Belonging
You can award a territory.
You can write a cheque.
You can design a badge.
You can build a stadium.
You can hire a marketing agency.
You can announce that a new soccer team has arrived.
What you cannot announce is that people now care.
That bit takes time.
It takes kids.
Parents.
Stories.
Defeats.
Heroes.
Arguments.
Local businesses.
Away trips.
Songs.
Old shirts.
Bad referees.
Memories.
That is football.
And if the Aztecs return, that has to sit at the centre of everything.
Not on page 37 of the marketing strategy.
Bottom Up
The Aztecs have to be built from the bottom up.
Supporters.
Families.
Children.
Local coaches.
Local businesses.
Neighbourhoods.
Southern California’s enormous football community.
Affordable access.
Youth football.
Latino football culture that has existed in Los Angeles for generations.
Not marketing at people.
Building with them.
That is how culture starts.
Slowly.
Messily.
Humanly.
Top Down
But I am not naive.
Romance does not pour concrete.
A serious football club also needs the top down.
Capital.
Land.
Planning.
Infrastructure.
Developers.
Professional management.
Broadcasting.
Sponsors.
A sporting department.
Commercial expertise.
Governance.
A stadium.
Cash.
Lots of it.
The clever part is not choosing between top down and bottom up.
It is making them meet.
Capital without culture builds an entertainment property.
Culture without capital can remain a lovely idea discussed in a pub.
The Aztecs need both.
Protect the Soul Before the Money Arrives
This is where good intentions normally disappear.
Everybody promises supporters matter when there is nothing worth fighting over.
The real test comes later.
When somebody offers money.
When a sponsor wants the colours changed.
When another city makes an offer.
When somebody thinks a new badge will sell more merchandise.
By then it is too late to talk about values.
So they need protecting early.
My preferred model is simple.
Create an independent supporter trust or supporter SPV.
Give it a special class of share.
Call it a Golden Share if you like.
The name is less important than the rights.
That share would have narrowly defined protection over the things that make the Los Angeles Aztecs the Los Angeles Aztecs.
The club name.
The primary colours.
The badge.
The home market.
Relocation.
The disposal of core heritage intellectual property.
Those things should not be changeable because somebody produces a clever PowerPoint.
Investors still need to invest.
Management still needs to manage.
Football executives need to make football decisions.
Commercial teams need to make commercial decisions.
Nobody wants a referendum on the left-back.
The supporter protections should therefore be narrow.
Clear.
Written down.
Hard to move.
The supporter body can also have representation at board level.
Not control over every operating decision.
A seat at the table.
And a lock on the soul.
The exact legal instrument will be built with US counsel.
But the principle is not negotiable.
People investing in the Aztecs should know what they are buying.
And what they can never sell.
Six Sites
We are not drawing a stadium somewhere on a map and pretending that means we have a project.
We are looking at six potential sites across the greater Los Angeles market.
They will not be judged simply on who offers the cheapest dirt.
The site has to work.
For football.
For the community.
And for the capital.
The criteria are straightforward.
Enough land to build properly.
A municipality that wants the project.
Transport and freeway access.
Population within realistic travelling distance.
Youth football participation.
Commercial development potential.
A route through planning and entitlements.
Visibility.
Infrastructure.
Room for the stadium to grow.
And enough surrounding economics that the entire project is not dependent on selling football tickets twenty nights a year.
If a site cannot support that model, it is the wrong site.
No matter how cheap it is.
A Stadium Is Not Enough
I have no interest in building a football ground in the middle of an ocean of parking.
Open the gates.
Play the game.
Close the gates.
See you next Saturday.
That is an enormous waste of land.
The stadium should be the heartbeat of a wider district.
Start with roughly 5,000 to 7,500 seats.
Keep the stands close.
Make it loud.
Make it expandable.
Then build around it.
Food.
Bars.
Retail.
Community space.
Youth football.
Training.
Entertainment.
Public space.
Potential housing.
Commercial uses appropriate to the site.
Places people use on Tuesday morning.
Not just Saturday night.
That changes the economics completely.
Two Engines
This is where the football and the property model meet.
There are two engines.
The club creates attention.
The district creates frequency.
Football generates identity, events, media, sponsorship and footfall.
The surrounding development creates economic activity on the other 345 days.
Neither should be used to hide a bad business model in the other.
The football club has to have a credible operating plan.
The property has to have credible real-estate underwriting.
Different assets may have different investors.
Different debt.
Different risk.
Different returns.
That is fine.
The mistake would be throwing everything into one bucket and hoping football pays for it.
It won’t.
How the Capital Can Work
The final capital stack will depend on the site.
But the principle is already clear.
Private equity into the club and associated rights.
Real-estate investment into development assets.
Senior development finance where the economics support it.
Strategic partners.
Sponsorship.
Naming rights.
Potential municipal participation through land, infrastructure or other lawful public-private mechanisms where there is a genuine public benefit.
Different parts of the district can carry different economics.
Commercial and entertainment uses can produce year-round revenue.
Residential or housing elements can sit in their own financing structures.
Community facilities can be supported through the broader project rather than being forced to survive on ticket sales.
The aim is not to make football subsidise everything.
The aim is to build enough economic activity around football that football does not have to carry the whole development on its back.
That matters.
Because I want affordable tickets.
And affordable tickets are much easier to defend when the entire business model is not squeezing every possible dollar out of the person sitting in Row F.
The Path to the Pitch
There is another mistake football projects make.
They believe everything has to happen at once.
It doesn’t.
The Aztecs can be built in phases.
Phase One: Build the Culture
Start now.
Community football.
Youth clinics.
Supporter membership.
Brand activations.
Exhibition matches.
Partnerships.
Content.
Merchandise.
Local relationships.
Take the Aztecs to people before asking people to come to the Aztecs.
Test markets.
Learn.
Build the supporter base.
Prove demand.
Phase Two: Professional Football
Enter the appropriate sanctioned professional pathway.
Use a suitable temporary venue.
Build the sporting department.
Recruit properly.
Operate properly.
Begin creating the weekly habit that turns a brand into a football club.
The league choice matters.
But I will not choose a league because somebody wants a logo on an investor deck.
We will judge the route on economics.
Territorial restrictions.
Sporting merit.
Standards.
Player development.
Supporter experience.
Long-term control.
Stadium requirements.
And whether the structure fits what we are trying to build.
USL is one part of that conversation.
Other sanctioned pathways may develop.
American soccer itself is changing.
The Aztecs should choose the structure that serves the club.
Not build the club to serve somebody else’s structure.
Phase Three: Home
Then open the permanent stadium.
Not as the beginning of the project.
As proof of everything built before it.
The district comes alive around it.
Football has a permanent address.
Supporters have somewhere that feels theirs.
The asset becomes harder to move.
The roots get deeper.
That is when the Aztecs stop being a revival project.
They become an institution.
Competing With LAFC and Galaxy Is the Wrong Question
Los Angeles already has two enormous MLS franchises.
Good.
They have spent years building their businesses.
They have supporters.
Stadiums.
Players.
History of their own.
I do not need either of them to fail.
The Aztecs do not need to become a cheaper imitation of LAFC.
Or Galaxy with different colours.
Los Angeles is too big for that thinking.
Our opportunity is elsewhere.
Different geography.
Different price points.
Different communities.
Different ownership philosophy.
Different scale.
Different relationship with supporters.
You do not build culture by staring at the bloke next door.
You build your own.
History Is Not Decoration
Cruyff matters.
Best matters.
Michels matters.
Not because I want to spend the next twenty years selling retro shirts.
Their presence tells us something.
The original Aztecs were prepared to think bigger than American soccer was supposed to think.
They brought some of the greatest football minds and personalities on Earth to Los Angeles.
For a moment it worked.
But stars created attention.
They did not create enough roots.
The original project was largely built from the top down.
This time we have the chance to do both.
Why Now?
Because America has just hosted the biggest football tournament on Earth.
The attention has been created.
The children have watched.
The sponsors have arrived.
The stadiums have filled.
Millions of people have had football pushed directly in front of them.
Now everybody starts talking about legacy.
Legacy is one of sport’s favourite words.
Usually it means a report written six months later.
I think it should mean something simpler.
What did we build that was still here when everyone went home?
The World Cup was the advert.
Now comes the product.
Not another month of football.
A place to belong for the next fifty years.
Why Me?
Because somebody has to connect it.
That is what I do.
I connect football and brand.
History and future.
Supporters and business.
Europe and America.
Culture and capital.
Bottom up and top down.
I do not need to be the smartest person in every room.
I need to know which people should be in the room.
Then make sure they are solving the same problem.
That is the role.
That is why I call myself the Matchmaker.
This Cannot Become My Football Club
There is one final test.
If we get this right, the Los Angeles Aztecs cannot become Scott Michaels Football Club.
That would be failure dressed as success.
Founders leave.
Owners sell.
Players move.
Executives get fired.
Supporters remain.
The objective is to build an institution capable of surviving all of us.
Including me.
So the culture gets built from the bottom up.
The infrastructure gets built from the top down.
The soul gets protected in law.
The capital gets given somewhere sensible to work.
The stadium becomes part of a wider economy.
And professional football arrives in stages rather than through one enormous roll of the dice.
That is the plan.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
Real.
Build It Properly
I did not invent the Los Angeles Aztecs.
I inherited a piece of football history and started asking what it could become.
Not a nostalgia act.
Not a vanity project.
Not a franchise dropped onto a map.
Not an investment vehicle with eleven players attached.
A football club.
Built around people.
Protected for supporters.
Backed by serious capital.
Anchored by real estate.
Rooted in Los Angeles.
Aware of its history.
And ambitious enough to do something differently.
The first Aztecs showed Los Angeles what football could look like.
They built from the top down.
This time we build underneath it too.
I am not trying to bring back 1979.
I am trying to finish what they started.
And this time, we build it to last.