ODESSA, Texas — Thousands of kids have played sports at the UTPB sports complex over the last 25 years. That will no longer be the case after the University of Texas Permian Basin and the City of Odessa did not come to terms on a new leasing contract.
Knowing this, the soccer association decided that it wanted to remove its soccer goals without the city's approval, not realizing that they had to go through the city first.
The soccer association owns the goals that were installed at the UTPB sports complex, but they weren't allowed to remove them on their own.
"We’ve always anticipated that we were going to get to remove the equipment that we purchased and installed at the soccer complex, so it was a little bit surprising when we were told that we had to wait for the council to make a decision," Tom Martinez, president of Odessa soccer said.
This is all because of the way the original contract was written up 25 years ago between the city, UTPB and the sports associations.
"The different sports associations have a contract with the city, so the lease agreement gives the city some authority to remove whatever they want to remove," Martinez said. "We have to get permission from the city to remove the stuff that we purchased and installed."
However, they still plan to take those soccer goals with them.
"Everything that we requested to move since we paid for it and installed it and we are expecting that we will take it with us to Sherwood Park," Martinez said.
The soccer association has decided to move to Sherwood Park. There, they won't have to pay fees that UTPB would have required.
"We were very open to negotiations with the university, and those negotiations basically went nowhere," Martinez said. "So in essence, the termination of the lease agreement basically was the end of our relationship with the university at the UTPB sports complex."
Martinez hopes that these contract issues will help the city move towards something bigger for sports.
"I hope this is a wake up call to the city council to have serious discussions about building a multi-sports complex for the youth of Odessa for all sports including soccer," Martinez said.