San Diego's new Major League Soccer team Thursday broke ground on its training facility and Right to Dream Youth Development Academy, a significant milestone toward taking the pitch in 2025.
The ceremony opened with a series of bird songs that are a part of the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation’s oral history.
“To bring that part to the ceremony and start our event today with our cultural traditions, it just means the world to us and to the Sycuan people,” Sycuan Tribal Chairman Cody Martinez said.
Martinez is also San Diego FC’s Vice-Chairman. The tribe is also a joint owner of the team. He said the facility is being built on sacred ground.
“You can feel the history in this land and so I think our partners in Right to Dream and the Mansours recognize that from the beginning,” Martinez said.
The future facility will be built on the Sycuan Reservation in El Cajon. The groundbreaking was attended by notables from the San Diego soccer scene, including Don Garber, the Major League Soccer commissioner, Mohamed Mansour, chairman of San Diego Football Club, and Manny Machado, a founding partner in the club and the San Diego Padres' third baseman.
"The groundbreaking is a historic moment for sports in the U.S.," Mansour said. "San Diego FC is the first major sports organization in America to be jointly owned by a Native American tribe, and now we are the first major club to build a training facility and Right to Dream Academy on Native American land.
"Singing Hills is hallowed ground, and we hope that what we build here will do it justice and create a lasting legacy," he said.
The Right to Dream Academy will be "an integral part" of the club's 125,000 square-foot campus, featuring a sports performance facility shared by the first team and academy teams, and five soccer fields — three natural turf and two synthetic turf fields.
Garber said San Diego FC is not your typical expansion team.
“When you think about what this facility is, which is different than all others, it’s global in nature. It has residences that have already been built and it’s a boys and girls academy,” Garber said.
According to the team, the residential academy will house male students between the ages of 12 and 18. The first group of residential athletes will be enrolled in fall 2025. Additionally, SDFC will create a non-residential girls pathway at the academy.
"This is a proud moment for the Sycuan Tribe and a giant step in serving the next generation of young athletes and future leaders throughout the San Diego community," said Martinez, "Today's historic groundbreaking marks not only the construction of San Diego FC's state-of-the-art training facility but also lays the foundation to nurture the dreams of young talent, fostering a stronger community and creating a legacy of soccer excellence."
The Right to Dream Academy is a scholarship-based academy in which all enrolled, residential athletes will receive full, five-year scholarships regardless of football performance.
San Jose Earthquakes Forward Ousseni Bouda is one of the Right to Dream Academy’s success stories. He was recruited as a child in Burkina Faso and attended an academy in Ghana.
“Right to Dream is a mentality and there’s an energy about Right to Dream that stays with you for the rest of your life,” Bouda said.
