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American Football: Chargers and Raiders plan for Los Angeles relocation

The franchises, who both played in Los Angeles before relocating, promised to continue negotiations over their current locations

Marty Graham
Saturday 21 February 2015 00:14 GMT
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The Oakland Raiders could be forced to share a stadium with the San Diego Chargers
The Oakland Raiders could be forced to share a stadium with the San Diego Chargers

The San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders could share a new stadium in the Los Angeles area if they fail to solve their current venue dilemmas.

Both NFL teams have struggled for years to reach deals on new local stadiums, and the owners of both teams – the Chargers’ Alex Spanos and the Raiders’ John J Fisher and Lew Wolff –have repeatedly expressed a willingness to move to Los Angeles, which does not have an NFL team of its own.

The franchises, who both played in Los Angeles before relocating, promised to continue negotiations over their current locations even as they move forward on the new stadium that would be located in Carson, California.

“For the remainder of 2015, we intend to move down two tracks simultaneously,” the statement said. “On track one, we will continue to work in our home markets to find permanent stadium solutions that are publicly acceptable.

“On track two, we will work in Carson to preserve our options and the future economic viability of our franchises, in the event that our efforts in our local markets fail,” it added.

The move would have to be approved by three-quarters of the league’s owners.

An hour after the announcement, a group called Carson2gether posted a video on YouTube of the proposed stadium, which the Los Angeles Times reported will cost an estimated $1.7bn (£1.1bn) and would be built on a 168-acre site.

The Chargers, who originated in Los Angeles, currently play at Qualcomm Stadium, built in 1967 and upgraded twice. The Raiders, play in the O.co Coliseum, built in 1966 and renovated in 1995, and were in LA from 1982 to 1994.

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