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Despite significant political momentum throughout California for a downtown Los Angeles stadium that would house an NFL team, the league had a recent message for people involved with the project:

Right now, no thanks.

During a Sept. 6 meeting at the NFL offices in New York, commissioner Roger Goodell told Los Angeles Councilwoman Jan Perry and political aide Bernard Parks, Jr. that neither the league nor any team interested in moving there would agree to the business proposal set forth by Anschutz Entertainment Group, according to three sources with knowledge of the conversation. AEG is the private company that has offered to build and operate a retractable-roof stadium, which would be named Farmers Field, on the site that is currently part of the Los Angeles Convention Center.

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In this file image provided by AEG, a proposed NFL football stadium, to be named Farmers Field, is depicted next to Staples Center in Los Angeles.
(AP)
While one source said that Goodell was optimistic about many parts of the proposal, it was clear that significant changes must occur before the league would be interested.

He was very complimentary of a lot of the project, so it wasnt all negative, a second source said. But he laid out the problems the league sees.

Both Perry, who is the chair of the citys committee on the proposed stadium, and Parks, the chief of staff for his father and L.A. Councilman Bernard Parks, Sr., confirmed that they met with Goodell last month. Neither of them would discuss what Goodell said about the proposal from AEG.

I wouldnt want to share the details of the conversation, Perry said Wednesday. We had a good, get-acquainted session and I discussed with him the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] we had passed in the city.

It was mostly about updating the league of the situation within the city and everything concerning the project to that point, said Parks, whose father worked for almost five years to get the NFL to return to the Los Angeles Coliseum and now supports the project at the nearby convention center.