Report: "99 percent certainty" Chivas USA goes on hiatus for 2015 MLS season

Here's a report that is bad, bad news if you are a Chivas USA fan.

SI.com's Brian Straus reported on Friday that sources have told him Chivas USA will go on hiatus for the 2015 season, and perhaps even longer, pending a possible sale of the team this year. According to the article, a source has said the hiatus is a "99 percent certainty."

There are a lot of moving parts, and despite the percentage given in the report, Straus notes that among other things, a new ownership group could look to play through the rebranding process, though apparently that would be hard on MLS apparel outfitter adidas.

The stated rationale behind going on hiatus would be to give the new ownership group as much time as possible to actually get the LA2 rebrand and organization plan right this time. That makes a certain sense, I suppose, as it would represent a clean break from the disaster of the Vergara and Vergara/Cue years.

There are a few potential issues with that rationale, however. First, the players currently under contract would, according to Straus, either go on loan or go through an MLS dispersal draft, and since two teams are joining MLS in 2015...my guess is that it would be the second option. That way, the new team could basically be built from scratch.

Also, this could be a mechanism through which to move the team from LA without having to announce it all at once. If there is no owner in place by the time this hiatus is announced, that could basically spell the club's end, despite the pronouncements to the contrary all year.

If an owner is in place this year, however, it would appear that the club will survive, otherwise they wouldn't bother buying the team at all. And Straus reports CUSA could be sold for more than $100 million, which would represent a tidy profit on the reported $70 million the league paid for it in February from Jorge Vergara.

But this obviously raises more questions than answers. I can't say for certain that this is true, but Straus is a very well respected reporter and I don't think he's making it up. We'll have to wait and see on confirmation, but I'd say the wind looks like it's blowing towards "hiatus," and that is very ominous news, indeed.

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