Hartford soccer team may have indoor season cancelled amid growing stadium fraud investigation

Today in Hartford soccer stadium debacle news:

• The president of the Hartford city council wants city development director Thomas Deller fired, saying he approved more than $735,000 in inappropriate payments to the would-be stadium developers before the project was killed when it turned out one of the owners was a convicted embezzler.
• The Hartford City F.C. team, which currently plays in the indoor Major Arena Soccer League but which was hoping to move to the outdoor North American Soccer League before eventually trying for a Major League Soccer franchise, may not play anywhere now after the director of the state authority that runs the Hartford arena where it was going to play declared, “Doors don’t open without payment. And we want to know where the money is coming from.”
• A Field of Schemes reader who obtained some of the invoices submitted by the developers has forwarded them here, and they are hilariously unspecific: If anyone can figure out what was actually paid for here, aside from some test borings, you win a prize!

But then, we are all winning a prize every day, which is the most entertaining sports ownership scandal since the time Nashua, New Hampshire evicted its minor-league baseball team for failure to pay rent by parking a tractor on home plate. Though Hartford still has time to top that one if it really works at it.