The LA Galaxy organization spoke up on Monday about a story that had broken open days earlier, concerning an alleged effort by the club to undercut local rivals and effectively evict them from their home venue starting next year. On Friday, USL Championship defending champion Orange County SC announced the Galaxy had submitted a proposal for their reserve team to play at Championship Soccer Stadium at Orange County Great Park in Irvine starting in 2023.

The issue at hand was that the Galaxy’s proposal to the City of Irvine, which owns the venue, was for exclusive use of the stadium, which would therefore evict Orange County SC from the stadium they’ve called home since 2017, as well as NISA side California Strikers United FC, who hosted the Galaxy first team at the venue earlier this year in a U.S. Open Cup match.

Needless to say, this generated plenty of bad press about the Galaxy. Among other things, fans of OCSC were upset at their club potentially losing their home, but fans from around the country rallied behind Orange County SC as the Galaxy did not look like they were doing anything but trying to bully other, smaller teams in the market to extend their own local footprint.

Orange County SC said they would like to share the ground with other teams, provided their partners are doing so in good faith. That seems to open a path where OCSC and the Galaxy can potentially find a way to work together in the future, should the Galaxy want to use Championship Soccer Stadium as the future home of LA Galaxy II. As a result, the Galaxy’s statement sounds promising in finding a workable solution.

It is worth noting, however, that it could still be potentially contentious moving forward. First, it’s not clear if the City of Irvine will not consider the Galaxy’s original proposal for the venue at all, or if they are merely giving the matter some time to avoid a public relations nightmare in the moment, so that remains up in the air.