MSL NOTEBOOK : Sockers Might Play in Mexican Event

By this time next week the Sockers will know whether they will take part in an indoor tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, that will feature such international sides as Marseilles of the French first division, Dynamo Kiev of the former Soviet Union first division and Flamingo of the Brazilian first division.

The tournament will be held the final week in January. The Sockers, who play only four Major Soccer League games that month, have no games scheduled between Jan. 19 and Feb. 2.

Organizers of the proposed tournament are scrambling to put together final details.

“They were supposed to give me an answer this week,” said Oscar Ancira, Socker managing general partner. “But they extended it to next week.”

Ancira actually should be saying “we,” because the organizer is Alejandro Burillo, one-third owner of the Sockers. Burillo also is among the hierarchy of the Mexican indoor federation and an executive vice president of Televisa, a TV network in Mexico.

“If Burillo is organizing it, he’s going to get it done,” Ancira said. “He doesn’t like to lose.”

It turns out that Ancira is really just the “feeble-minded . . . laughingstock of international soccer merrily going (his) own way in blissful ignorance.”

That’s according to Grahame L. Jones of Soccer International, a publication that shows its disdain for indoor soccer on a monthly basis. Jones was upset with Ancira for exploring the possibility of wooing Diego Maradona.

Ancira ran into numerous roadblocks in his attempt to get Maradona and eventually called off the chase. He took Jones’ barbs in good humor.

Jones contended, among other things, that the Sockers’ pursuit of Maradona was futile because “several Japanese teams with infinitely greater financial resources . . . are in the hunt for the 31-year-old former star.”

No wonder Ancira was laughing.

Vamsa, the Mexican investment firm that owns one-third of the Sockers, recently bought 51% controlling interest in Bancomer, the second-largest bank in Mexico. It controls 22% of that country’s total banking assets.

The purchase price collected by the Mexican government was $2.6 billion.

Bancomer generated earnings $315 million in the first 10 months of this year, which made it an attractive acquisition. So attractive, in fact, that some of Vamsa’s major shareholders took out a $900 million loan to complete the purchase.

It will be paid back by the sale of interest in a soft drink bottler and a brewery, the market value of which is $1.5 billion.

Socker Notes

Rookie Zico Doe turned out to be another Eddie Henderson. Henderson was the Sockers’ top draft pick in 1990. When he showed up at training camp coaches raved about his great potential. Ten games into the 1990-91 season, he was cut. Coach Ron Newman said he simply never progressed. Now nine games into the current season, Doe has been cut. “And for the same reason, too,” Newman said. . . . Mirko Castillo--recently cast aside by the St. Louis Storm, which complained about Castillo’s bad attitude--will be given a 12-game tryout as Doe’s replacement. “I’m pretty sure I can handle him,” Newman said. “If he was a problem player before, the rude awakening of being cut might have changed him.” Castillo is in his first season in the MSL. Last year he was the National Professional Soccer League’s third leading scorer with 63 goals in 31 games for the Chicago Power. . . . The Sockers will conduct their third Holiday Soccer Clinic at four locations beginning Jan. 2. Socker players will conduct the clinics for youths age 5-19 from Jan. 2-4. The sessions will be held from 9 a.m. to noon at Allen Youth field in La Jolla, Tidelands Park in Coronado, Sunset Park in La Mesa and Hickman Field in Kearny Mesa. Cost is $49 and includes a T-shirt and two tickets to the Sockers-Tacoma game Jan. 5. For information, call 224-4625.