In the back of the gallery, on a riser, a D.J. remixed pop classics like Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue” while a grainy film loop of Cosmos triumphs played on a wall. The food could be described as haute stadium — miniature hot dogs topped with sesame pickled-red-cabbage slaw. Propped up around the room were vintage trophies and photos of Pelé, Brazil’s beloved superstar, and Giorgio Chinaglia, Italy’s egomaniacal striker, who together in 1977 helped the squad win one of its five championships in the North American Soccer League.
“We’re very, very privileged that we’ve got the original Cosmos superstar striker here tonight,” Paul Kemsley, an impish 43-year-old Briton in a dark suit, said into a microphone. “Giorgio Chinaglia, here tonight!” The audience cheered as Chinaglia, now a hulking 64-year-old with a hangdog smile, nodded slightly. “We’ve also got the original Cosmos goalie, Shep Messing, here tonight!” More cheers, more nods. Then Kemsley wrapped it up.
“Thanks so much for coming,” he said, turning serious. “We hope you get it. It’s gonna be huge. Support us. The Cosmos are back.”
Hang on -— the team that gave Americans their first taste of soccermania, once packing Giants Stadium with more than 77,000 fans? That rum band of night prowlers with their own table at Studio 54 and Hollywood hangers-on? The franchise that vanished not long after Steve Ross, the head of Warner Communications, decided that pro soccer had no future? Those Cosmos are back?
Certainly the brand is back. Amid all the team memorabilia on display at that February party were plenty of crisp new Cosmos shirts, shorts and warm-ups, part of a recently unveiled line of clothing from Umbro, the English company that co-sponsored the shindig.
But Kemsley’s ambitions far exceed retro sportswear. A former real estate mogul who flamed out spectacularly in England when the recession struck, he is now chairman of the Cosmos, whose rights he bought recently. Since then, the team has been his all-consuming passion; he talks about building a stadium as well as Cosmos-related restaurants and hotels in New York City. He predicts that he and Umbro will sell a fortune’s worth of shirts in Europe and Asia. He has a staff of 16 already (including an executive named Terry Byrne, a close friend and former manager of David Beckham’s). He is touring the world to spread news of a second coming.
“I’m going to Singapore, to a dinner with the president,” Kemsley told me a week before the party. “The whole thing is just sick, do you know what I mean?”
For now, Kemsley is missing just two essentials: players and a league to play in. Players are easy; they can be bought. Breaking into Major League Soccer is trickier. Now in its 16th season, the country’s biggest professional soccer league will soon sell off rights to its 20th team, which Commissioner Don Garber has earmarked for New York City. The hope is to start a local rivalry with the New York Red Bulls, who play in Harrison, N.J.
The winning bidder for the 20th franchise will have to fork over as much as $100 million, Garber says, and have enough left over to build a stadium in the city. As important, prospective owners need to buy into the league’s modus operandi. “We need good owners, good stadiums, good marketing, serious guys who can be serious about the sport,” Garber says. “The Cosmos haven’t lived for 30 years. And unless it’s relaunched the right way, it won’t be successful.”
“Bless Don,” Kemsley said one afternoon not long ago, sounding like one of those charming rogues in a Guy Ritchie film. “I accept it’s not a done deal. But he’s got to give me that franchise.”
The Cosmos were the brainchild of Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, Turkish-born brothers and executives at Atlantic Records, a division of Warner Communications. In 1971, the Cosmos joined the struggling N.A.S.L. and initially played their games in dingy little stadiums. Then Ross, a natural-born impresario, decided in 1975 that what ailed the team could be cured by the biggest celebrity in the sport. So he coaxed Pelé out of retirement and into a Cosmos jersey with a multiyear contract that paid more than $1 million annually. At the time, the highest-paid athlete in baseball, Hank Aaron, earned $200,000 per season.
Pelé was introduced to Manhattan at a media-mobbed 21 Club on June 10, 1975. He was soon followed by the arrivals of Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer, a soft-spoken defender who captained West Germany to a World Cup championship in 1974. The Cosmos started drawing huge crowds to Giants Stadium, and during a summer best remembered for a blackout and the Son of Sam murders, the team was a gorgeous diversion. Mick Jagger showed up in the locker room. Liza Minnelli, Grace Jones, Andy Warhol and Bjorn Borg hovered around the team at Studio 54.
But when Pelé departed after the 1977 season, the buzz vanished. When the 1986 World Cup was awarded to Mexico rather than to the United States, the league was doomed. As players, coaches and executives scattered for the exits, nobody except for a former teacher named Peppe Pinton saw much value in anything Cosmos-related.
Pinton, who was Chinaglia’s personal assistant, gathered up what was left of the Cosmos — the gear, the trophies — and loaded it all into a storage facility. For years, he kept the trademark alive by running Cosmos-branded training camps for kids and by suing anyone who tried to exploit the Cosmos name. (By selling T-shirts, for instance.) “I spent $800,000 to $900,000 in legal fees over the years,” says Pinton, now 64 and the owner of a restaurant in Tappan, N.Y. For years, he looked and waited for a buyer who shared his particular fervor.
“I love the man,” Kemsley says, “but he drove me absolutely mad.”
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