San Diego FC manager Mickey Varas emphatically shut the door on any potential U-turn regarding the club’s decision to separate record-signing Hirving Lozano from the team’s 2026 plans.

It’s been a difficult start for San Diego’s sophomore season in Major League Soccer. Winless in their last six matches, the 2025 Western Conference finalists are currently sitting 10th in the conference standings. A player of Lozano’s caliber could theoretically help San Diego end their slump, but when asked about El Chuky’s potential return to the pitch, Varas had an unequivocal two-word response.

“No chance,” he said.

Two words are all it took for Varas to once again confirm that, under his watch, the Chuky Lozano era in San Diego is over.

Advertisement

---

What Happened Between San Diego and Lozano?

Advertisement

San Diego announced in January that Lozano was not part of the team’s plans for 2026 and encouraged him to look for a new team during the winter window. Lozano, who was the club’s first ever Designated Player signing, was cast aside after only one season, but why?

Advertisement

“It’s not worth getting into details,” Varas said about the situation in January. “This is a decision that was made based on an analysis of the whole year. This wasn’t just one thing that happened or something that happened at the end of the year.

“There were many things that we analyzed for us to decide we don’t fit together. This isn’t judging us as a club or him as a player, it’s simply saying that it’s not a good fit and what’s best for us is to continue without him.”

Lozano—still contracted with the MLS side through the 2028 season—has spent the entirety of 2026 training by himself, separated from his teammates, evidenced by recurring posts on his social media.

Cracks in Varas and Lozano’s relationship started at the tail-end of last season. The Mexico international was benched for the final game of the regular and one playoff match for a reported altercation with the manager, centered around the decision to substitute him at halftime in a previous outing. Disciplinary issues have been common for Lozano throughout his career.

Advertisement

The relationship between the pair fractured to a point of no return, and that’s widely regarded as the main reason for the current situation.

Advertisement

Lozano had offers to leave the club this winter, but the player refused to relinquish the fourth-highest salary in MLS, even if that meant giving up on the opportunity to represent Mexico in his third career World Cup this summer.

But with Varas doubling-down on his decision to do without Lozano, the saga will continue into the coming months.

Advertisement

---

Important Summer for San Diego, Lozano

Advertisement

The summer transfer window represents the next potential opportunity for Lozano and San Diego to go their separate ways.

Advertisement

The club could certainly use Lozano’s DP spot to target a high-caliber reinforcement, and finding a new home would allow El Chucky to get his career back on track considering he hasn’t played a single minute since Nov. 2025; however, the 30-year-old’s reluctancy to waive his lucrative salary could continue unless San Diego offers him a juicy payout.

The player seems unbothered by the situation. If Lozano has already surrendered his World Cup hopes in favor of his salary, then evidence suggests he’d have no issue continuing this way.

Alternatively, if San Diego’s struggles continue, and Varas can’t correct course, then it’s not out of the question that his manager job could potentially be at stake—especially with Lozano’s situation casting a dark cloud on the team’s season. If a new manager were to come in, then it’s not unrealistic to assume Lozano could be granted a second chance.

This last scenario is perhaps the least likely, meaning once again, Lozano and San Diego will have to make a decision on what the future holds this summer. The player has all the leverage, but how long can he continue training by himself before he decides enough is enough?

Advertisement

---

READ THE LATEST MLS NEWS, ANALYSIS AND INSIGHT FROM SI FC

Advertisement

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — For more than six decades now, South Mission Beach in San Diego has been the epicenter for Southern California Beach Volleyball.

Starting in 1965, when the nets first went up, pros and amateurs alike have been fine-tuning their skills from sunrise to sunset.

“This is the only time of day we can practice and play. Most of us work and have busy lives, so the mornings are the only time we can play, and have been for decades”, says Nathaniel Hentchel.

But as it turns out, the sunset sessions at South Mission Beach Volleyball Courts are not allowed, and never have been. Officially, the city courts do not open until 8:00 a.m. But after decades of zero enforcement, the city is suddenly threatening to issue tickets to anyone playing before that time.

“You know these courts have been used every morning for decades. A lot of people out here are shaking their heads, wondering why now. We don’t make noise; we clean up after ourselves. We understand the 8:00 a.m. start time. But it’s never been enforced until now,” says Richard Bailey.

According to the city, the sudden crackdown is the result of noise complaints from nearby homeowners and vacation renters. Many of the homes around here are short-term rentals. They also say it’s never been allowed, even though it happens every morning of every week and has for decades.

“To suddenly enforce it now, why? This is a cultural tradition here in San Diego. Believe me, there’s a lot more noise out here every morning than volleyball players,” says Anne Luempert.

“That’s louder than anything we do out here. Those airplanes are so loud, we have to pause our games just to hear the score called out,” says Barbara Birnbaum.

As a tight-knit culture, there is a certain amount of self policing out here. Including posted signs stating no music until 9:00 a.m., enforced by the players themselves.

So with the threat of losing a lifelong cultural tradition, a movement has begun within the community to change the rules and protect the precious morning tradition.

“So I started a petition on Change.Org to change the rules. We put it up two days ago and got 1,400 signatures in the first day. We now have almost 2,000. We want to have the city change the rules to reflect our community. Part of those rules will be no music until after 9:00 a.m.”

The volleyball groups have also reached out to city council members, hoping they will officially change the hours to reflect reality.

But ironically, these rules only apply to city-owned courts.

If you bring your own poles and a volleyball net, you can play from sunset to sunrise on nearby courts, and no one will harass you.

San Diego is slashing funding for arts, libraries and recreation centers, as it stares down a $146 million budget deficit that’s forcing unpopular spending cuts.

It’s not alone. Other California cities face similar gaps, including Los Angeles with a $200 deficit, Sacramento with a $66 million shortfall and San Francisco facing a $643 million gap over the next two years.

The cities’ financial woes echo the state’s projected deficit of $3 to $18 billion, as inflation collides with cuts in federal aid. In San Diego, lackluster growth of local sales, property and hotel taxes create an additional squeeze.

“What we’ve been seeing over the last several years after COVID and inflationary pressures, is that it has affected prices across the nation, across the world,” said Rolando Charvel, chief financial officer for San Diego. “Costs are going up faster than our revenue growth”

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria released a $6.4 billion proposed budget last week, revealing a barebones spending plan that shored up public safety, homelessness and road repair and traffic safety, but slashed other services.

“It makes the tough decisions now—including targeted reductions to staffing and support functions—to protect the services San Diegans rely on and keep the city on solid footing,” Gloria said in a statement.

That infuriated arts and culture advocates, who protested that the mayor’s plan would eliminate nearly all arts funding and curtail hours and programs at libraries, parks and recreation centers.

“When we cut the things that make San Diego or any city great, the things that bring us together as a community… I shudder to think what we end up with,” said Patrick Stewart, CEO of the San Diego Library Foundation.

San Diego City Council members were pleased to see strong public safety funding, but aren’t comfortable with dramatic cuts to the arts, council President Joe LaCava said. “People will pull out their pencils and start scouring the mayor’s budget to see if we can tackle that going forward.”

Adriana Heldiz

/

Advertisement

CalMatters

How California cities are falling short

Amid statewide budget woes, San Diego offers a case study in how city spending can fall into the red.

“We’re being hit both on the cost side and the revenue side,” said Alan Gin, an associate professor of economics at the University of San Diego.

Costs are up for everything from car parts for city vehicle fleets to asphalt for street repair, making maintenance and operations pricier, Charvel said. Meanwhile, inflation suppresses consumer spending, tourism and home sales — all key sources of local taxes.

That’s partly due to forces outside local control.

“Federal immigration policy, tariffs and other dimensions of trade policies, are putting cost pressures on deliverers of services in all sectors, and state and local governments are no stranger to that,” said Jeffrey Clemens, an economist with UC San Diego.

A November report by the National League of Cities stated that most cities were bracing for belt-tightening, as they contend with rising costs, infrastructure demands, tariffs and other challenges.

Its survey of local governments found that 55% of cities found it harder to balance their budgets in 2025 than the previous year, compared to just 11% in 2022.

Pandemic aid is expiring as cities confront new budget crunches, said Ben Triffo, a legislative advocate for the League of California Cities.

“I think we’re seeing the slow shift from recovery to restraint,” he said. “Our cities’ revenues are flattening; they’re not keeping pace with the costs.”

In San Diego, property tax growth is expected to slow this year, as the number of home sales drops, Charvel said. The region has a deep housing shortage, and limited inventory with high mortgage rates means fewer homes are selling.

Federal cuts to housing assistance, and inconsistent state funding for homelessness response, have also cost San Diego, LaCava said.

Ongoing inflation, fueled by tariffs and rising gas prices from the war in Iran, is suppressing consumer spending. In San Diego, sales taxes are projected to grow by half the rate they did last year, Charvel said. In 2024, San Diego voters rejected a one cent sales tax by less than one percentage point.

“Consumers are feeling squeamish in the general sense, in particular in the housing market, and that’s creating statewide and national pressures on property tax and sales tax revenues,” Clemens said.

San Diego’s tourism industry is also bracing for a slump; hotel taxes will grow just 1.5 percent this year, down from 6 percent last year, as both group travel and international visitation decline, Charvel said.

“For example, Canadians are boycotting the U.S.,” Gin said. “We’re affected by that in San Diego, because we’re a big tourism destination.”

As revenue stagnates, costs are piling up. The mayor’s office estimates it would cost $118 to $120 million more to run city services at the same level as last year, plus another $26 million for legal mandates, settlements, FEMA accreditation and other fixed expenses. San Diego has a backlog of maintenance for sidewalks and other facilities, and has to meet state mandates to upgrade its stormwater system, Charvel said.

Some critics say San Diego’s spending priorities are misplaced, pointing to bloated middle management and inadequate infrastructure investment. A report released this month by the San Diego Taxpayers Association stated that the city’s workforce has increased about four times faster than its population growth over the last 15 years.

During that period, middle-management positions grew 461%, from 70 to 393, the report stated. San Diego officials pushed back, stating that many of those positions were funded by specific grants, and some had since been reduced.

Other big California cities are also in dire straits. San Francisco’s government spending has far outpaced local tax growth, and the city struggles with federal cuts to food stamps and Medicaid.

Last week San Francisco workers protested the first wave of layoff notices after Mayor Daniel Lurie’s budget office warned departments to prepare to eliminate 500 jobs. The city also plans to cut disability assistance, environmental programs and legal aid.

In February, Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia wrote that the city is projected to overspend by $200 million, as it contends with last year’s Palisades and Eaton wildfires, “tariff levels unseen since the Great Depression, and aggressive federal immigration enforcement.” In a separate report on the last fiscal year Mejia warned that overspending, rising liability costs and stagnant revenue has led to “crumbling infrastructure and deteriorating services.”

Who bears the brunt of cuts?

As cities try to close their budget gaps, public officials and advocates should think hard about who will fall through the cracks, Clemens said.

“We should be worried that when cuts are being considered, the cuts will be to things that don’t have voices among well-organized stakeholder groups, that are the easiest, from a political perspective, to pull back on,” he said.

San Diego plans to close its budget hole by eliminating 101 jobs, placing employees on furlough for one week per year, and making steep cuts to selected departments.

San Diego’s 37 library branches will have to trim $2.5 million in hours of service, Stewart said, along with programming, books and materials. The city is also ending a matching grant fund that helped libraries drum up private donations. The city council will decide when and where to limit library hours.

The deepest cut was the near elimination of arts funding. The mayor’s budget proposes to zero out an $11.8 million arts and culture grant program, leaving just $2 million in a separate account.

“The mayor is proposing decimating a long-standing, critical source of revenue for what is now nearly 200 organizations across San Diego,” said Jessica Hanson York, executive director of the Mingei Museum and president of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership, which represents the museums at the city’s historic cultural center.

Many of those provide free events, performances and education programs, she said. In what York called a “double punch,” San Diego imposed controversial parking fees at Balboa Park earlier this year. Since then museum directors have reported a drop in museum visitation, while parking fees are bringing in less money than originally planned.

York questioned whether the $11.8 million savings would provide meaningful relief to the city’s multi-billion dollar budget, but said collateral damage could ripple out to other sectors and dampen spending on entertainment and tourism.

“When you cut quality of life services you absolutely undermine future economic opportunities, revenue, development and investment opportunities,” Stewart said.

At a packed hearing earlier this week, hundreds of residents spoke against gutting the arts program, and the city council plans to hold additional public hearings to refine the city’s spending plan. LaCava hopes to soften the blow of the deepest cuts but acknowledged there will be stark choices.

“Nobody is going to be happy with the budget as it’s going to be adopted in June,” he said. “My job as council president is to make it an open and transparent process. I hope at the end people will feel they had a fair chance to make their case.”