Saputo+Beckham=MLS????????
Publié : 07 septembre 2009 14:12
In Montreal, Parlez Vous Beckham?
David Beckham speaks English, a bit of Spanish and a smattering of Italian. And soon, perhaps, French.
As part of his five-year deal with Major League Soccer and the Los Angeles Galaxy, Beckham’s contract includes a clause that enables him to operate a team, or part of a team, in M.L.S. as early as the 2012 season.
“I have the right to own an M.L.S. franchise, which I will act on immediately after I have stopped playing,” Beckham told the BBC.
M.L.S. will add one team in 2010 (the Philadelphia Union) and two in 2011 (the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Portland Timbers). League officials have said they would like to expand to 20 teams, perhaps as early as 2012, and it is increasingly likely that Montreal will be the 19th team.
And according to a person with knowledge of Beckham’s planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about jeopardizing any potential deal, Beckham and his management team at 19 Entertainment (led by Simon Fuller) and Creative Artists Agency (led by Jeff Frasco) are interested in partnering with Joey Saputo, the owner of the Montreal Impact (the club now plays in United Soccer Leagues’ First Division, one tier down from M.L.S.) in the sporting capital of French-speaking Canada.
Other than confirming that he had been approached by a group of potential partners, Saputo declined to speak in anything other than general terms about his long-running efforts to obtain an M.L.S. team in Montreal.
“I can say yes, we were approached about two months ago, but I can’t say by whom,” Saptuo said in a telephone interview late last week. “I think Montreal would be a great candidate to be the 19th team in M.L.S. no matter who’s involved. This is a great market, a great place for soccer.”
Beckham is currently in England (he will not miss a Galaxy match), where the national team is scheduled to play Croatia in a World Cup qualifier in London on Wednesday (he did not play in Saturday’s friendly against Slovenia). He is expected to again play on loan with A.C. Milan of Italy beginning in January as he tries to land a spot on England’s World Cup team for next year’s tournament in South Africa.
Montreal has been a part of the M.L.S. expansion discussion for several years. Saputo was among the bidders for one of two teams in November, but ended up on the sideline. The cosmopolitan city has a long soccer history that dates to Le Manic in the North American Soccer League up to Saputo’s stewardship over the Impact. In the past year, Montreal successfully hosted a Concacaf Champions League match that attracted 55,000 to Olympic Stadium, and a French Cup match that drew 35,000 in July.
The stumbling block, in the view of M.L.S., is the limited seating capacity at Stade Saputo (current capacity, 13,000). Now, the club, city and province are nearing a deal in which Quebec would provide more than $20 million to expand the stadium.
“While we have recently had preliminary discussions with the Saputo family about future M.L.S. expansion into Montreal, we have not had any discussions with David Beckham or his representatives regarding ownership of an expansion team in Montreal,” Dan Courtemanche, the league’s senior vice president for marketing and communications, said in an e-mail message. ”Commissioner Don Garber and president Mark Abbott expect to travel to Montreal prior to the end of the year to discuss expansion with Joey Saputo. However, M.L.S. has not yet set a timetable for expansion beyond Portland and Vancouver’s entry into the league in 2011.”
It is reasonable to assume that Montreal, with or without the Beckham group, is likely to be the league’s 19th team, in 2012, or maybe sooner. Like Vancouver and Portland (and Seattle this year), Montreal would not be an expansion team, in the strict sense of the term. And perhaps that is what has attracted Beckham — there will be no need to start a team from the ground up, or build a new soccer stadium.
For its part, M.L.S. and Garber have publicly stated that they would like a second team in the New York area to share the metropolitan area with the Red Bulls and create the same sort of rivalries that are certain to bud in the Pacific Northwest. Garber once spoke about a club run by the family of Fred Wilpon, the owner of the Mets. But the Wilpons lost millions of dollars in the Ponzi scheme run by Bernard L. Madoff and are now believed to be out of the picture. But the league probably now envisions a 20th team in New York associated with Beckham, but he may have other ideas.
http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/0 ... s-beckham/
David Beckham speaks English, a bit of Spanish and a smattering of Italian. And soon, perhaps, French.
As part of his five-year deal with Major League Soccer and the Los Angeles Galaxy, Beckham’s contract includes a clause that enables him to operate a team, or part of a team, in M.L.S. as early as the 2012 season.
“I have the right to own an M.L.S. franchise, which I will act on immediately after I have stopped playing,” Beckham told the BBC.
M.L.S. will add one team in 2010 (the Philadelphia Union) and two in 2011 (the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Portland Timbers). League officials have said they would like to expand to 20 teams, perhaps as early as 2012, and it is increasingly likely that Montreal will be the 19th team.
And according to a person with knowledge of Beckham’s planning who spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about jeopardizing any potential deal, Beckham and his management team at 19 Entertainment (led by Simon Fuller) and Creative Artists Agency (led by Jeff Frasco) are interested in partnering with Joey Saputo, the owner of the Montreal Impact (the club now plays in United Soccer Leagues’ First Division, one tier down from M.L.S.) in the sporting capital of French-speaking Canada.
Other than confirming that he had been approached by a group of potential partners, Saputo declined to speak in anything other than general terms about his long-running efforts to obtain an M.L.S. team in Montreal.
“I can say yes, we were approached about two months ago, but I can’t say by whom,” Saptuo said in a telephone interview late last week. “I think Montreal would be a great candidate to be the 19th team in M.L.S. no matter who’s involved. This is a great market, a great place for soccer.”
Beckham is currently in England (he will not miss a Galaxy match), where the national team is scheduled to play Croatia in a World Cup qualifier in London on Wednesday (he did not play in Saturday’s friendly against Slovenia). He is expected to again play on loan with A.C. Milan of Italy beginning in January as he tries to land a spot on England’s World Cup team for next year’s tournament in South Africa.
Montreal has been a part of the M.L.S. expansion discussion for several years. Saputo was among the bidders for one of two teams in November, but ended up on the sideline. The cosmopolitan city has a long soccer history that dates to Le Manic in the North American Soccer League up to Saputo’s stewardship over the Impact. In the past year, Montreal successfully hosted a Concacaf Champions League match that attracted 55,000 to Olympic Stadium, and a French Cup match that drew 35,000 in July.
The stumbling block, in the view of M.L.S., is the limited seating capacity at Stade Saputo (current capacity, 13,000). Now, the club, city and province are nearing a deal in which Quebec would provide more than $20 million to expand the stadium.
“While we have recently had preliminary discussions with the Saputo family about future M.L.S. expansion into Montreal, we have not had any discussions with David Beckham or his representatives regarding ownership of an expansion team in Montreal,” Dan Courtemanche, the league’s senior vice president for marketing and communications, said in an e-mail message. ”Commissioner Don Garber and president Mark Abbott expect to travel to Montreal prior to the end of the year to discuss expansion with Joey Saputo. However, M.L.S. has not yet set a timetable for expansion beyond Portland and Vancouver’s entry into the league in 2011.”
It is reasonable to assume that Montreal, with or without the Beckham group, is likely to be the league’s 19th team, in 2012, or maybe sooner. Like Vancouver and Portland (and Seattle this year), Montreal would not be an expansion team, in the strict sense of the term. And perhaps that is what has attracted Beckham — there will be no need to start a team from the ground up, or build a new soccer stadium.
For its part, M.L.S. and Garber have publicly stated that they would like a second team in the New York area to share the metropolitan area with the Red Bulls and create the same sort of rivalries that are certain to bud in the Pacific Northwest. Garber once spoke about a club run by the family of Fred Wilpon, the owner of the Mets. But the Wilpons lost millions of dollars in the Ponzi scheme run by Bernard L. Madoff and are now believed to be out of the picture. But the league probably now envisions a 20th team in New York associated with Beckham, but he may have other ideas.
http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/0 ... s-beckham/
