The San Francisco 49ers got a big slap-down at the hands of the pint-sized players of the Santa Clara Youth Soccer League the other night, but it’s the team’s friends at City Hall who could be facing the political penalties for the botched play.
“It was not the Santa Clara way,” said Levi’s Stadium supporter and former Mayor Patricia Mahan, referring to the effort by the Niners and Mayor Jamie Matthews to turn the town’s youth soccer fields into VIP parking for the high rollers at the team’s new, $1 billion-plus playground.
Matthews and the 49ers had been shopping the plan around privately for weeks, and were hoping to push a deal across the goal line by next season that would have the team lease the fields from the city for $15 million over the next 39 years — plus a 20-year option.