San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders, St. Louis Rams file for L.A. relocation

The San Diego Chargers, Oakland Raiders and St. Louis Rams have filed applications to relocate to the Los Angeles area, the teams and the NFL announced Monday night.

The Chargers have played in San Diego for 55 seasons. In a video posted on the team’s web site, chairman Dean Spanos blamed “the inability of the city at the political level to get any kind of public funding or any kind of vote to help subsidize a stadium.”

The Chargers walked away from negotiations with the city and county in mid-June.

The Raiders would be going back to Los Angeles for a second time. They left Oakland following the 1981 season before returning from Los Angeles in 1995.

Raiders owner Mark Davis wants to partner with the division rival Chargers to build a stadium in Carson.

The Rams currently have a year-to-year lease with the Edward Jones Dome. Owner Stan Kroenke is part of a group planning a $1.8 billion stadium in Inglewood, California, and the team said on its web site that it sought to relocate to the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, where the team played from 1946-94.

Kroenke has ignored efforts by a St. Louis task force that is proposing a $1.1 billion stadium along the Mississippi River, not far from the Rams’ current stadium built in 1995.

Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest market, hasn’t had a team since the Raiders and Rams left after the 1994 season.

The league’s owners will vote next week in Houston on whether to allow any of the three teams to move.