MLS expands to Seattle

MLSnet.com
Staff- Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber will be in Seattle on
Tuesday, to announce that city will receive an expansion franchise to begin
play potentially in the 2009 season.

The
Seattle team will be owned by
Hollywood
movie studio executive Joe Roth, Seattle Sounders managing partner Adrian
Hanauer and Vulcan Sports and Entertainment, the owner of the NFL’s Seattle
Seahawks.

Details on
the team will be unveiled at a Tuesday press conference in

Seattle.

Seattle
has a storied soccer tradition as
it was home to the Seattle Sounders of the North American Soccer League from
1974 until 1983. The city is currently home to the Seattle Sounders of the USL
First Division. The Sounders have been crowned champions of the USL First
Division two of the past three years including 2007, and have produced MLS
players such as Houston’s Brian Ching and Chivas USA’s Maykel Galindo.

Seattle
will be the 15th team in Major League Soccer, after the addition of the San
Jose Earthquakes, which will begin play in 2008, the league’s 13th season.

MLS plans
to expand to 16 teams by 2010 and could feature as many as 18 clubs by 2012.
Expansion conversations continue with more than a dozen communities throughout
the United States and Canada. Commissioner Garber will discuss each market at
his year-end state of the league address on November 16 at the National Press
Club in Washington, D.C.