SOCCER / JULIE CART : Harkes Simply Wants to Help U.S. Team
John Harkes has returned to the U.S. World Cup team, but has yet to join it in a game. Harkes and his wife, Cindy, have been taking a few days off after a long season with Derby County in the English First Division.
Derby had a chance to move up to the Premier Division next season--it’s called a promotion fight--and at times the situation prompted actual fighting among fans. Harkes talked last week of playing Millwall, another team with a chance to move up, in a semifinal game. Twice the game was interrupted because fans charged onto the field.
The second time, the game was stopped and the players rushed off the field.
“I’ll never experience anything like that again,” Harkes said. “I hope I don’t, anyway. It’s the first time I’ve ever feared for my life on the (field).”
Harkes said the second rush occurred with 15 minutes left and Derby ahead. The referee, who keeps the time, was counting down the clock for the players every few minutes so they would have some warning and get off the field as soon as the game was over. Even at that, they were caught in the fan uprising.
Harkes said he was hit in the head with something when he ran off the field and that Derby’s goalkeeper was attacked by the fans.
“The intensity of the crowd was amazing,” he said. “It was a passion, but it was an evil passion.”
The question for Harkes when he does begin practice this week is where he will play. He is used to playing in the midfield but he also can play at outside back, where the U.S. team has a weakness.
“First things first,” he said. “I’m just getting organized. It really doesn’t matter where I play, as long as the whole team is on the same page. Obviously, there’s been a lot of controversy in the media, but speculation is good, it’s good people are talking about it.
“If that’s where Bora (Coach Milutinovic) wants me, I’ll do it, what the hell. I’ve got my own team on paper as well. Bora’s got some images in his mind, it’s got to be the right chemistry. He told me, ‘I want you where there is a weakness. I want you to fill that weakness.’ ”
Sounds as if the decision is already made. Key to the change will be Harkes’ attitude toward it. He has already played in one World Cup and knows the main thing is to get in the game. His professional attitude will no doubt help Milutinovic decide.
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The U.S. team is still negotiating the World Cup bonus structure, but it scored a victory when it was able to double the bonus for making the roster, from $10,000 to $20,000.
Leigh Steinberg, who is negotiating with the U.S. Soccer Federation on behalf of the players, said the unresolved issues include single-games bonuses for starters, substitutes and bench players. Those figures have been reported to be $5,000 to start and $2,500 to come on as a substitute.
Included in the first-round bonus package is an incentive of $2,500 a player for each point the team earns--one point for a tie and three points for a victory.
If the team advances beyond the first round, USSF will put $600,000 into the player pool, the money to be split among the players. Making the quarterfinals adds $800,000 to the pool, the semifinals $850,000, the finals $900,000 and winning the tournament $1 million.
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The issue of security fences at World Cup venues has been resolved, but not to the satisfaction of FIFA, the international governing body. The fences separating the field from the stands at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, RFK Stadium in Washington and the Cotton Bowl in Dallas will remain, despite the objections from FIFA and the World Cup organizers.
Joao Havelange, FIFA president, told reporters in Washington last week that fences amount to overreaction.
“This country stands for respect, discipline and freedom,” Havelange said. “We are not just surprised but amazed a bit by some cities building barriers, fences, around the (field). In some cities, it is like a panic to put up these fences. Other sports, nobody even speaks about putting fences around. Up to 80% of the spectators will be Americans. It is like your authorities do not trust your own people.”
Washington officials argue that fences are the most cost-effective method of securing the field. A six-foot chain link fence costs about $25,000, whereas overtime for police would run as much as $900,000. City officials offered to remove the fence if World Cup would pay the police. World Cup ’94 chose not to.
But World Cup organizers did pay the city of Pasadena between $3.6 million and $4.6 million to cover security costs in the neighborhood of the Rose Bowl. It will cost the city $500,000 to $1 million to pay extra police throughout the rest of the city.
In a related matter, the situation with the Los Angeles Police Department and its continued labor problems will have minimal effect on the World Cup, even if the officers strike, World Cup chairman Alan Rothenberg said.
“LAPD is only one part of the overall integrated security plan,” Rothenberg said. “We have all kinds of other agencies and private police. We have every kind of contingency.”
LAPD officers rejected the latest contract offer and there are threats of a strike.
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Economic figures released last week would seem to indicate that there will be profit-taking on both sides of the World Cup.
Pasadena will make an estimated $700,000 from the $2-million rental of the Rose Bowl alone. New Jersey expects to make about $1.5 million on the renting of Giants Stadium and from parking and concessions. Then there is Stanford Stadium, where officials are estimating a loss of $500,000 to $1 million.
The athletic department expects to spend about $2.2 million to improve the stadium, one of the oldest of the World Cup venues. That cost will probably offset income from parking, concessions and a $500,000 payment from the San Francisco host committee.
Soccer Notes
The Dutch appear to be in turmoil, but that is the way they like it. First the team was deflated by the abrupt departure of Ruud Gillit last week. Then Marco van Basten, the three-time European player of the year who needed surgery on his right ankle, unexpectedly announced that he was coming back to the team after a year of rehabilitation.
Then came the news that AC Milan, van Basten’s Italian League team, was forbidding its star investment from playing on his fragile ankle.
“I did not expect such a hard reaction by Milan officials,” van Basten said. “However, AC Milan’s reasons are fair, and I have understood that I must accept them. My heart told me to go (to the World Cup), but I had to listen to reason.”
Desmond Armstrong, a veteran of the 1990 World Cup team who was among the last players cut from this year’s team, has landed a job doing in-studio analysis for ABC-TV. . . . Caltech seismologists have figured the odds of a major earthquake hitting Southern California during the World Cup: chance of a 5.0 or higher aftershock of the Northridge quake, 11%. Chance of a 5.0 quake in all of the region, 19%.
