Major League Soccer returns to Bay Area
From Greg Dubrow
Hooray, MLS coming back to the Bay Area! You may not like that Lew Wolff is trying to take the A’s out of Oakland, but you gotta like that he’s bringing MLS back to the Bay.
Let’s get ready to rumble — again. The San Jose Earthquakes are coming back for the 2008 season of Major League Soccer, this time as a new expansion team.
According to a source with knowledge of the deal, Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff and his ownership group will be a guest of MLS Commissioner Don Garber at Thursday’s All-Star game outside of Denver, and the official announcement will likely come at Garber’s annual state of the league press conference on Wednesday. Wolff can now exercise his option to start his expansion franchise for the ‘08 season.
While executive vice president of Earthquakes Soccer David Alioto would neither confirm or deny the deal, he said: “Should we begin activation for the 2008 season we will immediately start the search for a technical director and a head coach.”