The first big cracks in the foundation of a proposed new professional women’s soccer stadium in Franklin Park have appeared, giving a major public relations hit to its financial backers and main proponent, Michelle Wu.

What started to sound like a good idea – renovating a dilapidated inner city stadium for kids – is now looking like an expensive vanity project for the Boston mayor and the group of high profile investors looking to make a profit off the team.

Is it time for the investors to reassess? Do they really want to force themselves on the mostly minority neighborhood residents?

A Herald report detailing how the bid for the $200 million White Stadium renovation appeared to be rigged for the soccer team long before a request for proposals was sent out is the latest major setback for the project.

The dark cloud around the bidding process has given some badly-needed ammunition for Wu’s re-election opponent, Josh Kraft, who has called for a pause on the stadium demolition and an investigation into the bid.

The first major blow came last week when team investor and Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Pizzuti Henry, the well-heeled wife of Red Sox owner John Henry unexpectedly pulled out of Boston Unity Soccer Partners in what appeared to be a move to avoid the backlash from the fierce neighborhood opposition to the stadium.

“I will then just be a Boston Fan, not part of the BosNation team in any way,” Pizzuti Henry said in a social media post.

Another blow could come soon from the court, which is weighing a request by neighborhood residents to halt the project.

Any further setback could damage the brand of the investors like Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, actress Elizabeth Banks and Celtics executive Brad Stevens. All the investors who came in on a wave of good will are now facing major pushback from the community.

Do they have the stomach to muscle their way into the inner city? Are BosNation investors in it for the long haul or are they starting to get shaky?

And Wu may soon see it as a fight she doesn’t want to be front and center on.

Kraft, with his father, Patriots owner Robert Kraft with him on the campaign trail, is now politicizing the stadium, without mentioning his own self interest in his family’s potentially competing soccer stadium plan in Everett.

Wu has been ramping up her public schedule lately, and needs to change the conversation away from White Stadium because she doesn’t want to be shackled to that issue.

Will the forces that support Wu put pressure on the soccer team investors to take the fall and save Wu from any further damage?

All the investors, mostly well-to-do white women, are trying to dictate to the neighborhood what’s good for them, coming in on a vow of high-minded social justice and honoring the stadium’s “legacy.”

“The programmatic vision for the Boston Public Schools and Boston Unity partnership is holistic, taking into account both the stadium renovation as well as landscape activation of Franklin Park,” the team investor website says.

“Landscape activation” in this case means cutting down scores of old trees to make way for a parking lot.