MSL Title Is Secure, but What of Sockers? : Indoor soccer: Fowler, saying he isn’t looking to fold the team, searches for other owners as MSL regroups for next season.

There won’t be a ticker-tape parade to commemorate the Sockers’ ninth indoor soccer championship in 10 years. If there were, the seemingly annual doubts about the franchise and the league would rain on it.

* Owner Ron Fowler will not announce the future of the club until the beginning of June, which has led one columnist to speculate Fowler will fold the team.

* Coach Ron Newman, the only Socker to be a part of all nine championships, has not begun contract talks for next season.

But there is good news for the Sockers and the troubled league they have dominated for so long.

On the local front, Fowler said he isn’t looking to fold the team, which wrapped up its ninth title in 10 seasons Thursday with an 8-6 victory over the Cleveland Crunch to clinch the Major Soccer League championship series, four games to two.

As for the league, the owners and players’ union are working together to try to cut costs without reducing the salary cap for the third time in as many years.

In addition, it appears league membership will be solidified by early June, rather than in late summer as in years past, which will give franchises a jump on season-ticket and sponsorship sales.

Fowler said he is pushing to get his club’s status settled “by Friday, May 31, or Monday, June 3.”

He said he would like to maintain ownership of the team, but not by himself.

“We (Fowler and MSL Commissioner Earl Foreman) are looking at multiple options,” he said Friday. “Earl is exploring some options, and we’re exploring some of our own possibilities. I’m trying to bring in some minority partners. Earl is looking for someone who would come in as a managing general partner and I would move to a limited partner.”

Fowler has come to the rescue of the franchise twice before. Before the 1987 season, he stepped in to right a ship sinking under the stewardship of original owner Bob Bell.

He came to its aid once again and bought it out of bankruptcy the following summer. He filed for Chapter 11 under the bankruptcy code on behalf of the team to alleviate hidden debt incurred by Bell.

Fowler since has stayed with the team despite dwindling attendance and revenues. One reason he has kept with it is because the players’ union has accepted salary cap reductions the past two summers.

Union director John Kerr confirmed the players were asked to accept another reduction in the $670,000 ceiling earlier this month.

“They came to us and said in order to save a couple teams, we may have to drop the cap,” Kerr said. “We realize that no one is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. There are troubled franchises out there . . . but at this point in time, the player reps are not interested in discussing lowering the salary cap again.”

Kerr suggested that franchises that could not afford $670,000 in salaries could field teams for less and asked that a $570,000 minimum be approved. That figure is closer to the price range of the National Professional Soccer League.

“They’re discussing bringing in two or three teams from that league,” Kerr said. “But right now that is near impossible with the disparity of salary caps. Bringing the caps closer together should help.”

The NPSL says its cap is $300,000. Various reports have put it as low as $150,000.

Sockers player representative Waad Hirmez said the players have no objections to the plan.

“If it helps bring in some teams from the other league, why not?” he asked. “Plus, once they get over here, they will see that if they want to be competitive with us, they will have to sign better players. So they will want to move their cap up to the level of the other teams.”

In addition to working with the union, the owners are pushing to decide who’s in and who’s out by early June.

“All of us felt that last year the situation with St. Louis being on-again, off-again really hurt our season-ticket and advertising efforts,” Fowler said. “We really have to get going by early June, or it’s an exercise in futility.”

Already announced for next season are: Baltimore, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis and Tacoma. In addition, an expansion franchise has been granted to Pittsburgh, and others are expected to go to Buffalo and to Dallas, where the Sidekicks folded at the end of the season because they were not able to pay a promissory note to a former owner.

Still up in the air are the Wichita Wings and the Sockers.