Vancouver awarded MLS expansion team for 2011

Vancouver, the western Canada city which will play host to next year’s Winter Olympics, will be home to a Major League Soccer expansion team starting in 2011, the US-based league said on Wednesday.

The city was among four candidates for two new clubs set to open in two years for which MLS had been seeking 40 million dollars. St. Louis, Portland and Canadian capital Ottawa still chasing the other expansion club.

Vancouver’s approval as the 17th MLS club, the second in Canada after the 2007 debut of Toronto FC, comes on the eve of the debut of the 2009 season and the league’s 15th club, the Seattle Sounders.

A 16th MLS team, Philadelphia, is set to begin play next year.

Vancouver will play at BC Place Stadium, which is set to undergo about 365 million dollars (Cdn) in renovations to become a retractable-roof stadium before the new team debuts.

Canadian Steve Nash, a National Basketball Association star guard for the Phoenix Suns, is among the ownership group for the Vancouver team, as are Steve Luczo, a part owner of the NBA champion Boston Celtics, and Jeff Mallett, a part owner of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants.

Also in the group is Greg Kerfoot, owner of Vancouver’s second-level football squad, the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Changes in the domed stadium, which will seat 20,000 spectators for the MLS team in its lower bowl, will be based along those found at the home venue of Eintracht Frankfurt of the German Bundesliga.