For this very moment, L.A. is home, sweet home: Raiders will probably play in Coliseum this year.

For this very moment, L.A. is home, sweet home

Training camp has opened but no one but Al Davis seems to be able to say for sure where the Raiders will be playing their home games this football season.

And Davis, managing partner of the Raiders, isn't saying.

The team and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum are going ahead with plans for the Raiders to play their home games here but both parties say that the final and real decision is up to the unpredictable Davis.

Al LoCasale, executive assistant to the Raiders, said "I would suspect that we will be playing in Los Angeles this year. But right now we are just trying to get the team ready for our exhibition game in London."

The Raiders have two seasons left on their 10-year contract to play home games in the coliseum, but Davis has said he may move the team back to Oakland, where they used to play, or to Sacramento. Last week the Alameda (Oakland) County Board of Supervisors approved a revised plan for the Raiders to return to the city. The plan included upgrading the Oakland Coliseum to meet Davis' demands for a more modern and profitable facility.

Davis has said the Los Angeles Coliseum is not a modern football stadium and isn't profitable because it lacks luxury boxes that appeal to corporations or wealthy individuals.

Alisa Spilman, a spokeswoman for Spectacor Management Group, the property management company for the coliseum, said negotiations are continuing with Davis to keep the Raiders in Los Angeles and to upgrade the facility.

"Spectacor is prepared to put $125 million to $150 million into renovating the coliseum and the improvements include 240 luxury boxes," she said.

In some stadiums, it costs football fans up to $40,000 to buy a luxury box.

Overall seating capacity for football would be reduced at the coliseum from about 94,000 to between 75,000 and 80,000 but seats would be brought down closer to the playing field, said Spilman.

She said the outer walls and the distinctive end zone architecture would not be destroyed under the renovation plans.

Spilman denied rumors and speculation in Los Angeles that the historic coliseum would be torn down and a new stadium would be built in order to keep the Raiders.

"I can tell you for sure that it is not going to be destroyed," she said.

LoCasale said he was uncertain about what is next in the ongoing story of where the Raiders will call home in the future.

"We have been down this road many times before so we just have to wait and let things happen. If anything is going to happen, I suspect it will happen in 1992," he said.

In the last few weeks, there have been mixed signals on where the Raiders will eventually call home. In Oakland, there has been some community opposition to the $660 million deal to bring the team back.

In recent weeks, Sacramento, which at one time was in the running for the Raiders, has faded from the picture and officials there are no longer pursuing the franchise as they once did.

And in Los Angeles, no one seems to know where the Raiders will go.

"There has been what "I think is a genuine effort by both the private and public sectors in Los Angeles to keep the team here but like I said, right now we just have to wait and see what happens," said LoCasale.