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'Humiliated' Sounders to give fans refund

By Ray Marchum
May 10, 2010

TUKWILA, Wash. – The front office of the Seattle Sounders FC was so embarrassed by Saturday's 4-0 loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy, they decided that the season ticket holders needed to be rewarded for sticking around to the end.

They're getting their money back.

The team announced on Sunday that they will be giving credits equal to the ticket price of Saturday's game to all 32,000 season ticket holders, to be used towards next year's season tickets.

They said they were doing this because of the "humiliating" performance that the team gave on Saturday. It was Seattle's worst home loss.

"The effort wasn't good enough. The execution wasn't good enough. The heart wasn't good enough. The passion wasn't good enough," said Sounders FC General Manager Adrian Hanauer on the Sounders' website.

"The only thing that was good enough was our fans. So we decided that we're going to give our fans their money back for that game."

Hanauer said the refund wouldn't be a precedent, but that the fans needed to be rewarded for sticking with the team for the long haul.

"We don't plan on giving people money back every time we have a bad game," he said, "but as the owners of the club, we reserve the right to do whatever we think we need to do to treat our fans the way they've treated us."