As a fellow Cleveland-area sports fan and someone who calls Kent, Ohio home, I felt the need to address with you, an icon for us Ohioans, some serious concerns I have with the ethics, lack of respect, the disgustingly sly puppeteering and just plain bullying that the Seattle Sounders organization has launched against Levante UD over the course of the last few days.
Like you, I love the Browns, Indians, Cavaliers and especially our beloved Kent State Golden Flashes, however my favorite sports team in the world is a little soccer club from my grandfather's old neighborhood in Valencia, Levante UD. We are a humble, but historic club. We have been around for over 102 years. We are a family club that everyone would agree is vastly overachieving these last few years. By sheer economics alone we should be in Second Division, yet we qualified for Europa League on a shoestring budget, one of the lowest in all of La Liga. We make a living off taking chances on washed up players who no one else wants. Obafemi Martins is just one example. Quite frankly, I believe the way the Seattle Sounders has handled its "interest" in Martins is absolutely lamentable. Instead of going to Levante and starting negotiations, the Seattle Sounders announced its interest in Martins via Twitter. Is this really the way a professional sports organization conducts its business matters?
It is my personal perspective from afar that the Sounders management has been inciting Martins to rattle cages in the media by saying that he is "unhappy" at Levante and fabricating a lie that Levante did not follow through with an unnamed and nonexistent promise. Quite frankly, the veil is so thin its impossible for anyone with a pulse and an understanding of the situation to buy into it, especially when considering Martins has been one of the happiest and most grateful members of our team until just a few days ago. Indeed, the very day before Seattle showed up to whisper in his ear about 5 million USD, Obafemi tweeted that he hoped to "win a title with Levante".
Seducing Martins with Benjamin-Franklin millions and then inciting him to rebel against his actual club to save some money on his transfer is absolutely deplorable. Worse yet has been the determination of Sounders F.C. to bully Levante by throwing our humble club through the ringer of a surmounting media campaign, pressure cooker in the week of our city derby, the most important game of the year for us humble Levante fans. Instead of dreaming about what could be a historic away win for us, we have had to turn our eyes away from television screens and newspapers and feel sorrowful as we watch the demise of someone who for many was a Levante hero, all due to the puppeteering of a distant organization thousands of miles away (Remember what you must have felt when LeBron James left Cleveland, only imagine it occurring during the season, after the trade deadline and right on the verge of the Playoffs).
If the Sounders organization really wants Obafemi Martins, pay his exit fee. It is really as simple as that. Levante is owed some decency and does not deserve this completely disrespectful treatment. The Sounders have been around since 2007, Levante since before 1909. It is disrespectful not only to Levante but to the beautiful game and to the general code of ethics and gentlemanly behavior that accompany the sport in Europe, to attempt to dismantle a humble team on the verge of our big game just to save yourselves a few hundred thousand dollars and have Oba on your team months before the MLS transfer window even closes.
Yes, we signed Obafemi Martins for free last year and Sounders could have signed him back then if they really had wanted to. Instead, Obafemi turned down any other offers that he may have had to come reignite his career at Levante and play Europa League football. Thanks to the opportunity we gave him, it is obvious from the Sounders interest, that he has accomplished that.
As a matter of respect and appreciation to Levante, re-discovering this football talent and giving him a chance when no other European club was interested, is worthy of recognition. It is also worthy of just compensation for winning its long-shot bet on Martin's success and for potentially losing our leading goal scorer and one of our star-players in the middle of a historic season and without any possibility of signing another striker to replace him. In our first-ever appearance in European competition, we are just supposed to willingly watch our team get dismantled and be complicit in it, in fact offering it up at bargain price? Though I know too well what the frustration and self-loathing of the Cleveland sports narrative tastes like, I do not think that is the treatment my humble Levante deserves.
So, please, un poco de respeto, a little respect for little, historic Levante. I would think a small-market franchise like the Seattle Sounders would not need to be reminded of this. ¡Macho Levante!
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Dean Burrier Sanchis
President of Levante UD's USA fan club "Born In The USA"
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