New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is not fond of seeing the New York Mets being sold to Steve Cohen and is reportedly planning to ruin Cohen’s plans to finish the acquisition of the MLB franchise. De Blasio is doing everything he can to damage these plansbefore they’re completed.
A couple of hours prior to the officializing of the Mets’ sale to Cohen from the Wilpon family, Mr. de Blasio is keen to do whatever he can to stop this from happening, without any major success so far. According to the New York Post, de Blasio is using all his resources to prevent this to be completed.
The report says that the mayor called MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred at the start of the month to discuss this whole situation, making the case against the sale of the Mets and Citi Field to Cohen.
New York City mayor isn’t happy seeing the Mets being sold to Steve Cohen
Mr. de Blasio is doing everything he can to stop this deal to go through; he still has some hours before it is completed and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop until everything is official for the Mets and their new owner.
“Bill de Blasio has privately told Major League Baseball that he will do everything he can to stop Steve Cohen from buying the Mets.
“The Post has learned that Hizzoner called MLB commissioner Rob Manfred earlier this month and told him outright that he opposed the idea of a hedge-fund billionaire buying a local team and would be using his oversight power of the city’s control of the Citi Field lease to prevent the sale from being finalized.”
New York City Hall replied to this saying the mayor was just doing his job, the “due diligence” before the deal is sealed. Yet, that was denied by the Post, who reported he’s even using his law department to find anything to prevent this sale to be completed.
“The ‘due diligence’ line is bulls–t,’ a source familiar with City Hall told The Post. ‘He’s told [Major League] Baseball he doesn’t want Cohen and he’s told his Law Department to find a way to stop it.’”
It is said that the league continues its plans to vote on Friday even if De Blasio doesn’t formally approve the deal before the deadline. It looks like the mayor is in a race against time and he doesn’t have many chances to win it.