Big-league bid nearing injury time

November 14, 2007

Terry Bell  - Province

Consider this Vancouver ... if you don't hurry up and build it, there ain't nobody comin'.

That, in a nutshell, was the message MLS commissioner Don Garber gave Vancouver Tuesday, only hours after he officially announced that Seattle has landed a team for the 2009 season.

The MLS would love to come to Vancouver but with no soccer stadium, time is running out.

Garber said MLS will expand to a maximum of 18 teams. San Jose opens for business as the 14th team in 2008. Seattle becomes the league's 15th team with another franchise to be awarded in 2009. There is no official timeline for the final two, but with enticing burgs like Montreal, Miami, Las Vegas, San Diego, St. Louis, Atlanta, Cleveland, Portland, Philadelphia and San Antonio all showing MLS interest, Garber can't be kept on hold for long.

"Vancouver can only get into that mix with a soccer facility that would be appropriate for them and for the league and they don't have that right now," said Garber, who hinted that all 18 cards could be dealt by 2011. "It's hard to imagine that Vancouver could be part of the next round without having some things happen with the city.

"The key for Vancouver is being sure that they have a stadium plan. They have the opportunity to be part of the mix for 17 and 18 as opposed to missing out on the opportunity to get in the league.

"There is no rush to expand," said Garber. "We need to get into the right markets with the right ownership with the right facility. If that is not in place in a couple of years after 2009, then we'll just wait. But if it is in place then it could happen very quickly."

And there's the rub. The MLS will soon be in a position to pick and choose, not wait and hope.

What's truly mind-boggling about this, of course, is that Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot has been trying to build a downtown stadium for four years.

And he's hit four years of hurdles.

"It is surprising," Garber said of the wait. "It's a fantastic market. It's not often that you have an owner that's willing to fund a stadium and just needs a handful of things to be approved by the city."

Garber said that if a stadium is built Vancouver would be near the top of expansion competition.

"If they're successful with their stadium, it really moves pretty high on the MLS expansion list," he said.

Meanwhile, the MLS price tag keeps going up. Toronto paid $10 million US for its 2007 expansion team. San Jose paid $20 million and Seattle paid $30 million. The Chicago franchise sold for $35 million a few months ago.

Caps president Bob Lenarduzzi got Garber's message loud and clear.

"I think it was pretty clear what was suggested," he said. "It has been four years now and that's a long time.

"We don't want to be out of the running because we're still talking about a stadium in one, two, three years down the road. We're hoping for some action, an idea of when the process can be concluded. We don't want it to go on indefinitely."

The latest update has the Caps meeting with the Vancouver Port Authority, which owns land on which a stadium could be built. The Caps need to negotiate a deal with VPA before going back to the city to continue the application process for re-zoning and the public consultation.

Of course, there's a stray cat living in an alley near that stadium site, a beast that could be deeply traumatized by the arrival of 20,000 soccer fans. A focus group is now trying to catch the cat to determine if it's in favour of a stadium or opposed.

While we await that report, the game clock ticks. And we'll be in injury time before we know it.


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