MLS to Expand to Montreal?
The New York Times’ Goal blog is reporting that Montreal Canadiens and Liverpool owner George Gillett’s investing interest in M.L.S. will thrust Montreal to the forefront of future expansion.
Gillett would partner with Joey Saputo, owner of the Montreal Impact in the U.S.L. First Division. The two would reportedly split the $30 million M.L.S. entrance fee as well as the $12 million needed to add 7,000 seats to their 13,000-seat soccer-only facility.
M.L.S. will already expand into Seattle in 2009 and Philadelphia in 2010. An additional Montreal team would make seventeen. A likely option for evenness would be a second team in New York to be owned by the Mets.
I have two arguments against this.
One, the M.L.S. needs to look at the big picture. Northeast teams may be more financially stable in the short-term, but the league may be better off expanding into soccer-friendly areas in the Midwest, such as Detroit and St. Louis. The true test of the league’s viability will be the generation of fans who grow up with the sport. Congregating at the coasts limits potential national appeal.
Second, as any Liverpool fan will say, George Gillett is not a man to do business with. He came to Liverpool bearing roses and slick promises, only to try to skulk out the back door with fistfuls of cash at the first opportunity. The league needs an owner, who cares about the game and is willing to nurture a long-term investment. Gillett is not that person.
The MLS is an American league and continued canadaian expansion hurts the American player, the US National Team and helps Canada develop a soccer culture that could compete with us. MLS needs to learn its place- it is a developmental league for AMERICAN players, not a future mini premiership as deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis and posters on the Guardian blog have claimed. I cannot continue to support a league that in an about face seems dedicated to destroying what we have built in this country in the last 25 years. Things better change quickly.