HOUSTON -- It has been nearly four months since 11 News reported that the city of Houston was buying six blocks of land near downtown as a way to convince the teams professional soccer team the Dynamo to build a new stadium here.

Every week since then we've asked Mayor Bill White how things are going. Here was today's answer:

“There's a distance between the two parties I wouldn't call it either optimistic or pessimistic,” said White.

The impasse is over money. The Dynamo want millions of taxpayer dollars to help fund construction. The city won't do it.

"But we're not going to take money out of the police budget or the fire budget or have some big new tax that is imposed on everybody in the community in order to build a new stadium,” the mayor said.

Now, the rhetoric is ramping up.

On Friday, the Dynamo handed the mayor a letter, from the commissioner of Major League Soccer.

"I am concerned about the lack of progress in your discussions with the City of Houston," writes MLS commissioner Donald Garber.

He said he'd consider moving the Dynamo out of Houston unless the city agreed to help pay for a new stadium. Otherwise, "the Houston team will continue to lose money."

The mayor didn’t take to the letter.

"I don't respond well to threats, it was, I don't know,” said White.

The mayor thinks the letter is a bluff.

"I think we've made an offer that's a reasonable offer that they can make money,” he said.

In a hastily called press conference Wednesday afternoon, Dynamo president Oliver Luck said despite the tone of the letter, the team has not set any deadline for a deal to be struck. But, he said private financing of the stadium would not be the goal.

"It’s extraordinarily difficult to commit to that kind of private funds to that kind of stadium without any economic help from a city," Luck said.

Luck estimated a new stadium would cost about $105 million. He said in many cases MLS teams have partnered with cities in a 90/10 split on financing, with the municipality picking up 90-percent of the funding.

The Dynamo are not looking for that sort of split in Houston, but Luck said the city would have to put up some sort of money to make a new stadium a reality. He stressed though, no deadline has been set and the team has not been talking with any other cities about a possible move.

So is the letter just one more play in a long-fought game? Or could it be the beginning of the end of soccer in Houston?