FC Barcelona bids for MLS team in Miami
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Major League Soccer received a potentially massive boost on Wednesday when one of Europe’s elite clubs, FC Barcelona, officially made a bid to launch an MLS team in Miami.
If the bid is successful, look for Barca Miami to begin play in 2011, using the new 21,000-seat stadium at Florida International University as its initial home ground.
‘This is a very important day in our club’s 109-year history,’ Joan Laporta, president of the two-time European champions, said at a news conference in Miami. ‘We are a global brand and it is important to [be] present in the U.S. market and in the sport in America.’
Barcelona made its bid in conjunction with Bolivian-born Miami businessman Marcelo Claure, founder of the wireless communications company Brightstar. Claure already is heavily involved in soccer as chairman of the Bolivian first-division team FC Bolivar.
The Miami bid will face opposition from several other U.S. and Canadian cities hoping to land an MLS team, most notably St. Louis, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Atlanta and Portland, Ore. All six also submitted formal bids to MLS by Wednesday’s deadline.
The league currently consist of 14 teams, with the Seattle Sounders due to begin play in 2009 and Philadelphia joining in 2010. The league will add two more franchises in 2011, en route to eventually becoming a 24-team circuit.
Some reports Wednesday said that Barca Miami, which is the club’s working name and not necessarily its final choice, was trying to launch in 2010.
‘We have the stadium ready to go and we have the finances in place,’ Claure said.
Several other MLS teams have working relationships with European clubs--the New York Red Bulls with Red Bull Salzburg, the San Jose Earthquakes with Tottenham Hotspur, the Colorado Rapids with Arsenal, and Real Salt Lake with Real Madrid, for example--but Barcelona would be the first European team to actually own part of an MLS club.
Barcelona is a widely popular team in the U.S. and has attracted sellout crowds when it has brought such stars as Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Deco, Lionel Messi and others to play exhibitions here.
Chances are that, like Chivas USA, which sports Chivas de Guadalajara colors, Barca Miami also would reflect its parent club.
A decision by MLS is not likely to come before 2009.
The Miami Fusion played in MLS from 1998 to 2001 but never grabbed the attention of Miami’s fans because it played its home games in Fort Lauderdale. It disappeared when the league contracted.
-- Grahame L. Jones