Minnesota United, Ramsey County discuss making Allianz Field a polling place

At the direction of its players, Minnesota United management has met with Ramsey County officials to discuss turning Allianz Field into a polling facility come November.

Club CEO Chris Wright said on the team's TV pregame show Saturday that proposal is one of "about 30 different items" in discussion among players, front-office employees and ownership.

MLS and Minnesota United on Saturday played on, three days after five of six scheduled games were postponed after players joined those from other major pro leagues and refused to play to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by police in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday.

They did so after the league's Black Players for Change and MLS owners agreed to meet to "create long-term change both inside and outside of MLS," a league statement said Friday.

Wright said the club has been "working for a while now" with its nine Black players — including Black Players for Change board member Ike Opara — on what it called "actionable items that need to be large, palpable and they need to send a message."

Another item for which players asked: the formation of a coalition to work toward making the franchise more diverse and inclusive that Wright said the club is working to launch.

"We will make sure we pay a role in trying to eradicate societal racism as it exists today," Wright said.

Opara tweeted on July 2 that he didn't accompany his teammates to the MLS is Back Tournament so he could undergo physical rehabilitation on a "pre-existing condition."

He missed all six tournament games, and Saturday's game in Dallas was his second missed since MLS restarted its regular season playing games in teams' own markets. The team listed him out for that game because of an "undisclosed" injury or condition.

"We are at this moment in time still in the dark with it," Loons coach Adrian Heath said in a Thursday video conference call with reporters. "It's a day-to-day with us, and we'll just deal with it day-to-day. But at this moment, we're no closer to him traveling with us on Saturday than we were last week."

Loons midfielder Jacori Hayes trained with his team during the week despite a leg injury that had the team list him as "questionable" for Saturday's game against FC Dallas. He was available as a substitute against his former team.

Hayes, 25, played two-plus seasons for Dallas, which traded him to Minnesota in January for a conditional 2021 draft pick.

• Greg Ranjitsingh on Saturday started his second consecutive game as goalkeeper for injured starter Tyler Miller, whose hip surgery will sideline him for the season. "I think he'll be better for the game," Heath said of Ranjitsingh's Loons debut in last week's 2-1 home loss to Sporting Kansas City. Dayne St. Clair was available as backup for the first time after he was recalled on loan from San Antonio FC and completed a quarantine that kept him away from last week's game.