New OP soccer complex gets national tournament

A celebration is scheduled for Aug. 29 to open the 70-acre facility.

Overland Park has landed a major national tournament for its new $36 million soccer complex that’s scheduled to open later this summer.

The United States Youth Soccer Association is planning to hold its national youth soccer championships in Kansas City’s biggest suburb from July 20-25, 2010. An official announcement about the tournament is expected next month.

The national championships top off a series of events known as the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship Series, in which more than 10,000 teams compete every year.

The national championship, which will draw 60 teams and 1,000 players from across the country, will be played at the new complex, which is nearing completion with a dozen synthetic turf fields near the corner of 135th Street and Switzer Road in south Overland Park.

The city has scheduled an Aug. 29 celebration to open the 70-acre facility.

“The vision of the city in building this complex was to host the top events in the country,” Alan Blinzler, president of the Kansas State Youth Soccer Association, said in a prepared statement released Monday.

“The awarding of the 2010 U.S .Youth Soccer National Championships — the first ever such event in Kansas — speaks to that vision and the quality of the new complex,” Blinzler said.

The U.S. youth soccer championships is one of 17 tournaments that are already booked for the new complex, said Mike Laplante, manager of the city’s soccer park. There are nine tournaments scheduled to be held at the complex this year.

While the U.S. youth soccer event may not be the biggest to be held at the Overland Park soccer complex, it’s probably has the most prominent nationally, Laplante said.

The nine tournaments slated for this year are project to bring 17,000 players and 35,000 spectators to Overland Park. The 17 tourneys to be held next year are predicted to attract 41,000 players and 82,000 fans.

Overland Park has planned the soccer park since 2007. The city decided to build the complex in the aftermath of Johnson County’s failed attempt in 2006 to get voters to raise property taxes for 24 youth fields next to a stadium for the Kansas City Wizards.

Overland Park’s soccer complex is being paid for from an increase in its hotel tax — raised two years ago to 9 percent from 6 percent — and from user fees.

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