Football league cancels 2016 season

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Major League Football President Wes Chandler delivered the bad news Thursday: The league is delaying its opening season until 2017.

Chandler sent an email to players who had been drafted by the league's eight teams, informing them 2016 will be a developmental year in preparation for a 2017 kickoff, according to the East County Observer, sister paper of the Business Observer.

“We pushed forward with the intent of playing this year,” he wrote. “However, it's become apparent to me that moving forward in 2016 with an abbreviated season would put your safety and the quality of play in danger.”

The Lakewood Ranch-based league was expected to begin training camp this week at Premier Sports Campus. The local facility was in the process of lining 10 football fields for the league to use.

On Tuesday, MLFB executives met to discuss operational problems. The league had planned to bring just less than 1,000 players and personnel to Lakewood Ranch, in east Manatee County, for its three-week training camp.

The camp was originally scheduled for early March, but was backed up to March 31 after the league announced it had lost a $20 million financial commitment from Clairmont Private Investment Group LLC on Feb. 8.

On Feb. 17, however, MLFB announced it had a $20 million equity and a $100 million line of credit with Asian Global Capital Ltd. that would put the league back on track.