MLS' Expansion Strategy: If You Can't Beat Them, Get Them to Join You

Last week at the Major League Soccer All-Star Game festivities in Toronto, MLS commissioner Don Garber suggested that the league might expand further into Canada. Steve Nash is putting together a bid to launch an MLS club in Vancouver, while Liverpool co-owner George Gillett, who also owns the Montreal Canadiens, is teaming up with Montreal Impact owner Joey Saputo to lift the Impact from USL to MLS.

There's a subtext, however, to this northern expansion talk. Montreal and Vancouver both have fairly successful clubs in the USL First Division. In fact, the inaugural Canadian Championship featured both the Montreal Impact and the Vancouver Whitecaps, as well as Toronto FC. The winner of that six-game home-and-away series would get a CONCACAF Champions League bid.

Guess what? That bid went to the Impact, who clinched the Canadian Championship with a 1-1 draw at Toronto last Tuesday. Then, just one day after MLS loses the Canadian bid to the Champions League to a USL club, Garber is talking about bringing both of Canada's USL cities into MLS.

Convenient, eh?

Of course, MLS wouldn't even be thinking about adding Vancouver and Montreal if it weren't for the general incompetence of the Canadian Soccer Association, who didn't have enough foresight to build a true Canadian pro soccer league. Regardless, Garber seems awfully eager to ensure USL doesn't steal any more of his league's thunder. Maybe MLS should work toward expanding the salary cap and roster sizes, though, before expanding into more cities. It's the league's stinginess that's really keeping USL so competitive.

(H/T: Soccer By Ives)