5 POINTS PRESSFIRST EDITION

3.1.11- THE SUPPORTER’S REPORT

- Why Eric Cantona is smarter than you.

- Garber talks NYC expansion! (again)

The Supporter’s Report:

Where we are, and where we have been.By: Nick Laveglia

It has been a while since we have had a newsletter and our apologies as things have been crazy and we wanted to make sure we were not bombarding your inboxes with insignificant news.

Over the past few months we have continued to be in touch with and to grow our relationship with the New York Cosmos ownership. The group has been putting a lot of money into their movement, taking on names such as Cobi Jones and Eric Cantona.

There has not been much news in terms of a stadium and entry into MLS from the Cosmos but the league Commissioner Don Garber has sure been speaking a lot of it and he even discusses the Cosmos group.

In this edition of our new and improved newsletter you will see stories ranging from the Cosmos to Don Garber talking about NYC expansion. It really looks like New York City is the frontrunner for the 20th MLS spot to start in 2013. While Garber

says there a few potential parties, the Cosmos are the only ones making any headlines. The Borough Boys still have some doubts about whether a team can be up and running in its own stadium in 2013, but the main players still express confidence on this score, so stay tuned.

Recently, the Cosmos had an event in Soho in which they invited some members of the Borough Boys. At that event, we began discussions about a possible event for the fans to have a Q and A

Why Cantona is smarter than you.by JD Mac Kinnon

In the middle part of January 2011, the recently revived New York Cosmos unveiled a signing that both shocked and surprised some. Eric Cantona, Manchester United’s player of the century and a French wizard with the

Garber Talks Expansion: “Other Markets will come in as team 21 and beyond.”

MAJOR LEAGUE Soccer Commissioner Don Garber spoke again about the 20th expansion spot and NYC. This time with AOL Fanhouse.

FANHOUSE: YOU’vE committed to adding a 20th team (Montreal joins as the 19th in 2012). Are you willing to put

What the hell is the 5 Points Press? We are an independent

source of news and opinion

about the New York Soccer

Scene & MLS expansion.

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» cont.., pg. 2

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MMXIVol. 1 - Iss. 1

You think the story’s over, but it’s ready to begin.

with the brain trust of the Cosmos organization. More details to come.

Since day 1 The Borough Boys have been dedicated to helping bring a professional soccer team to New York City and things are looking promising for the first time since 2008.

We hope to have this new newsletter at least once a month to keep fellow supporters up to date as it seems news is ready to start coming in. Enjoy the new format brought to you by 5 Points Media, which will be the media arm of The Borough Boys and will hopefully include podcasts, video as well as other media publications. Feel free to reach out if you wish to help.

Take a look through the newsletter and join the discussion with fellow borough boys on our message boards or facebook page. We never left, we have been working and as we always sing. We’ll be Coming!

5 POINTS PRESS:Editors:

Nick Laveglia, Brandon SonnierLayout/Art:

Brandon SonnierWriting:

JD Mac Kinnon, Brandon Sonnier, Nick Laveglia

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The Borough Boys to...hold event to discuss various topics with the Cosmos Front Office.

The Cosmos had an event on February 24th to launch their Spring 2011 Umbro line of apparel.

Members of our supporters club spoke to key members of the front office anda Q&A with the Cosmos will be held in the coming weeks.

It has been proposed that the Borough Boys will host an event in the future that will hopefully feature key members of the front office answering important questions the fans have been asking. The goal is to have the likes of Paul Kemsely and Terry Byrne speaking to the fans about the issues.

This is our opportunity to come face to face with the owners and staff of your possible new club.

5 Points Media and the Borough Boys will have regular updates including venue and date will be posted in the near future.

Q & A W/ ThE COSmOS off other prospective cities and investors in order to ensure that the 20th team is in New York?

GARBER: WE have been very focused on our 20th team being in New York. We’re not close to being done with that. But it still remains our goal, and therefore the other markets that we remain in discussion with will come in as team 21 or beyond.

THIS IS all well and good, but it is now at a point where hearring the same mes-sage has gotten tiring. Just come out and update us where you stand with NY2. Enough with the “we are focused” but rather tell us what is the update in terms of stadium talk and which of these “potential owners” leads the pack.

GARBER SPEAKS of all these other investors and the Cosmos are the only ones in the public. He should come public with other investors, if not, stop playing games, sit down and finalize this deal.

WE UNDERSTAND that there is a need for discretion on some topics but at this point, after months of saying the same thing about 20th team, the NYers are getting frustrated and it could turn them off from MLS. Is that what Don Garber wants? It is curious why he is not embracing the excitement around the Cosmos. This is a fantastic PR chance for his league but the longer this prolongs without serious news, the more chance that fans will start to drift away from the idea.

FANS ARE frustrated and want answers. The Cosmos have seen the frustration, but it might be time that Garber feels those frustrations as well.

THE POSITIvE thing for fans to take out of this, is that Garber all but says NY will be the 20th team, although we will beleive it when we see it.

GIT ER DONE DONNY!

Garber Talks Expansion..cont.

Cantona is smarter than you...cont.

ball back in his heyday made a return to soccer with an organization that has gone from being past history to present-day restoration. The Cosmos needing a face to their organization did a double grab with both Cantona and former US international Cobi Jones being added as the cornerstones for the organization being built from the basement up, but some have called the appointments miss placed while others are saying it is downright bizarre that a legend like Cantona would make his return with a franchise that has yet to find a league. I on the other hand look at the former Red Devil playmaker as an untested IQ genius who basically has more to gain and less to lose with this deal. First off Eric has rarely been involved with football in the past 14years with the most work done in the sport coming from Nike and there Tv commercials. (My favorite is Joga Bonito) When you’ve lost 14 years in an industry you formally worked in you must regain the same skills by working in the mail room and waiting for that chance to talk to the CEO on that “far east deal”. Pretend now that European football is the CEO and soccer in CONCACAF is sort of the mail room, Eric needs that chance to prove that he has not lost the skills associated with the world’s game and that places like North America is the chance. Former greats tend to fail in the categories of coach or CEO with success being the exception and failure being the majority; but why try from the top and not work like a laborer to find a way to the top.

Second off Eric has had basically a career in acting and financial advising for the past 14 years and has never held a job as someone with a suit and briefcase before. If you are in this position why would you want the glaring lights and focused attention of a soccer media crazed Western Europe or England to begin your career as a “soccer suit” so to say. You would not want that in the slightest and that is because of the issues with this position and pressure put upon you every day. Here in the US soccer is more like the Olympics with the focal point being the climax of the World Cup and the lull the three and a half years in between. Soccer in the media is reserved for the small print blocks of game write-up in the paper or the specific sections of the website. This allows the failures of Cantona to go in a sense unpunished by the masses or to not be looked at with

a European microscope but his success to gain the biggest font in the soccer section. Sure the educated fan will tell you like it is but they are a small market compared to the ignorant who dot the athletics world or the Eurosnobs of both US and the Europe landscape who only know the success of a player/coach and not his short comings. The last thing that Eric did that makes him smarted than me is pick a brand name that is being built again but has already been there done that. It’s almost the same logic that Six Flags had when it acquired the rights to the DC Comics and Looney Toons. Six Flags was a known chain on its own but when it added those two entities they all came synonymous and symbiotic the same way Russian girl/strip club and Hockey/Canada are. But unlike the others both can help each other help themselves. With success for the Cosmos comes the international media and attention to “King Eric” as some call him, with more attention and exposure coming from the EU. With Eric’s success an international brand associated heavily with triumph and grander times becomes more internationally acclaimed and recognized. Since when has a US Soccer team gotten interest from the Middle East? When Don Garber when down to Argentina the questions asked during an interview were varied but with a specific point on the Cosmos saying that the world is interested maybe not as heavily as to who’s at Barcelona but to see a once proud franchise regain its regency and succeed in the modern soccer world of America. Both will push each other to be more celebrated and this only allows both to grow stronger. Even if Eric is basically the guy who changes the fax machines and the Cosmos never return he got his foot into a door as an executive, and even if and when the Cosmos return they have if anything a figurehead who can help this team reach a galactic hype that only a few have.

We’ll see the results of this in the coming years but truly Cantona and the Cosmos (sounds like a fan band no?) is a match made in valhalla and one that has more benefits then problems even if the analysts say otherwise.