Miami MLS expansion: Tim Leiweke ‘nervous about MLS in Miami’
The chances that David Beckham’s proposed MLS expansion team will get a deal done to build a stadium in Miami seem to be increasingly small, according to the Miami Herald.
In an interview with the Herald’s editorial board, Tim Leiweke, who joined Beckham’s group seeking expansion into the MLS in late October, was grim in his projection on whether a deal to purchase land near Marlins Park would get done.
Miami United has already agreed to purchase land from Miami Dade County—however, there’s a holdup over negotiations for six private pieces of land.
According to Leiweke, the owners of those pieces of land are using the situation to drive up prices to unreasonable levels.
“We’re willing to overpay. We just don’t want to be the stupidest guys on the face of the earth,” Leiweke said.
The Major League Soccer board of governors meets the first weekend in December and expansion will be one of the major topics of discussion. If Beckham’s Miami bid does not have a solid plan for a stadium, it could lose out to other players, including Las Vegas, Sacramento and Minnesota.
“If at the end of the day, whether it be the politics or the greed of the situation we’re facing makes this unable to happen ... then I’ll let the commissioner decide,” Leiweke said. “But I don’t like those odds and it makes me very nervous about MLS in Miami.”
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