Dubuque Soccer Alliance, CourtONE LLC reach lease agreement for the Dubuque Soccer Complex
The Dubuque Soccer Alliance (DSA) is thrilled to announce that we have signed a 25-year lease for the Dubuque Soccer Complex with Court One LLC. The lease is for the same $1 per year rate that we had previously with the school district, and ensures that our user groups will have access to all seven fields. The DSA is excited for this next chapter of soccer in Dubuque alongside our new partner, Court One. This new partnership is one we view as mutually beneficial and are excited to foster.
“Court One’s commitment to youth sports is clear and their intentions in Dubuque are pure and simple,” said Jon Denham, President of the Dubuque Soccer Alliance. “We’re going to run and maintain this space at the highest possible level, and we’re going to do it in conjunction with landlords who want to see the sport grow in and around Dubuque for soccer players of all ages, ability levels, and financial demographics. This is an exciting time for the soccer community.”
The DSA would also like to take this opportunity to clear up some information related to one of our user groups, AYSO Region 419. The local AYSO region has been a valued member of the DSA since its inception, and the DSA had been hopeful that this relationship would continue under the new lease with Court One.
Unfortunately, two members of AYSO’s leadership have spent the last several months actively working to undermine and destabilize the relationships among Region 419, the DSA, and Court One. It eventually became clear that these AYSO leaders were intent on moving Region 419 to a new facility, to be developed on property the two of them purchased through a non-profit organization they control.
This realization, when viewed in light of other conflicts of interest, breaches of fiduciary duty and confidentiality, and the suspension by AYSO of two of their own board members who were working to ensure that Region 419 remained at the soccer complex, culminated in the difficult decision to suspend AYSO as a user group within the DSA. The suspension is not tied to their ability to sign, or not sign, this 25-year lease. It is directly related to the actions of some AYSO leaders who worked both within and outside of the Alliance to damage the relationships among Court One, the DSA, and AYSO Region 419. A level of commitment in line with the rest of the Alliance membership, who voted 12-3 to approve this lease (one member abstained), would have set us all up for 25 more years of a thriving local soccer community. It should be noted, the Alliance has not removed or “kicked out” AYSO Region 419. What we have done is position ourselves to fill open field space with programming that helps bring revenue into the Alliance for our regular, annual maintenance and upkeep, as well as ensure to the families of Dubuque have access to high-quality programs at the Dubuque Soccer Complex.
“It brings me no joy to enter a new lease without a longtime member, but a partnership of this magnitude with Court ONE, with this much goodwill towards the soccer community here, cannot be overlooked,” added Denham. “Presenting legal documents as your own when they are not, sharing falsehoods and mischaracterizations of board actions as fact with the media, and failing to fulfill a fiduciary duty cannot go unchecked. Our non-profit organization, full of volunteers, has committed a lot of time and energy to providing a wonderful space to play the world’s most popular sport right here in Dubuque for the next 25 years. I’m proud of the DSA. I’m excited about the future of it. And I think the soccer families here will see and feel that in a very real way during the 2023 seasons.”