WORLD CUP SOCCER NOTES : Details Given for U.S. Professional League

Once again, an American professional soccer league is on the horizon. And once again, because soccer and the American sports fan are as compatible as Burt and Loni, there are questions.

Alan Rothenberg of Los Angeles, chairman of World Cup ’94 and president of the United States Soccer Federation, conducted the first public unveiling of the new league here Friday.

Bits and pieces of detail on the planned league have been coming out for the last few months. But Rothenberg, speaking only hours after getting an official go-ahead for his plan from soccer’s international governing group, FIFA, used the occasion of a captive media audience in Las Vegas for Sunday’s final draw to put it all on the table.

The details, in quick summary:

--The league will be called the MLS, for Major League Soccer.

--It will begin in the spring of 1995 and run into September.

--It will have 12 teams in 12 cities.

--It will allow only three foreign players per team, so that the league is truly an American one, although it may bend that rule a bit in the early years so that a few additional foreign players can increase the league’s quality.

--The first cities approached will be the 27 that lined up to bid for World Cup venues, plus a dozen or so additional logical candidates. The likelihood is that most major metropolitan areas will get teams.

--The league will not be a collection of 12 owners, each dancing to his own tune. It will be what Rothenberg calls a “single entity league” that he likens to the McDonald’s hamburger chain, where a central authority makes the rules and policy and the local landlord--in this case the local soccer team management unit--carries them out and does its own area marketing only within league guidelines.

One negative is that there aren’t enough properly equipped 25,000-30,000-seat stadiums, considered to be perfectly sized for this sort of league, in the country. Another is that it may take a great deal more money than Rothenberg and his people seem to have to get all the best American players back from their high-paying teams in Europe.

Rothenberg also seems to be betting that his single-entity league will pass all antitrust challenges, even though the groups he beat out for the right to run this league seem to think differently. He seems to be confident, too, that he can find 12 owner-managers for the teams who will not succumb to that dreaded American sports disease often referred to as EOE, Excessive Owner Ego.

The MLS plan for early financing is to get the public to put up great gobs of money with down payments now on season tickets for a league that will open in about 16 months. The American public, however, has been down that path before, i.e. luxury boxes at the L.A. Coliseum that remain the figment of somebody’s imagination.

Finally, there is the glut factor, as in too many teams and not enough dollars or time. If Los Angeles gets an MLS team, which it certainly will, that team will be added to a sports smorgasbord that includes Lakers and Clippers and Kings and Ducks and Rams and Raiders and Dodgers and Angels and Bruins and Trojans. Even Waves and Salsa and Anteaters. That means that the biggest hurdle facing the new L.A. soccer team may very well be finding a nickname.

Soccer Notes

Under questioning at a news conference, FIFA President Joao Havelange of Brazil was steadfastly evasive about whether international hero Pele will be involved in Sunday’s draw. “There is no obligation on the part of FIFA to take this person or that person or any other person,” Havelange said. Havelange and Pele are feuding over a lawsuit filed by Pele against Havelange’s son-in-law over TV rights. Alan Rothenberg, World Cup ’94 chairman, has expressed a desire to have Pele involved, because he is the most recognizable soccer name for most Americans. When the question of Rothenberg’s wishes was raised, Havelange said, “Rothenberg has everything he wants.”

Pele was the only unanimous choice for the All-Time World Cup team, selected by 991 voters in 109 nations and announced here Friday. Others receiving more than 90% of the votes were Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, the Netherlands’ Johan Cruyff and Argentina’s Diego Maradona. . . . FIFA ratified the decision by its executive committee to award three points for victories in the first stage--the first three games--of the World Cup. . . . It also decided that yellow cards handed out to players in the first stage will not carry over beyond the first round.

Times staff writer Randy Harvey contributed to this story.