VANCOUVER — On Friday, Major League Soccer (MLS) commissioner Don Garber accompanied Prime Minister Mark Carney to witness Canada’s decisive win against Qatar. Garber likely preferred that Carney not become too enamored with the stadium experience.
BC Place poses significant challenges for Major League Soccer. The facility is aging, not originally built for soccer, and owned by the BC Pavilion Corporation, a government entity that also manages the Vancouver Convention Center. This ownership structure means the Vancouver Whitecaps must compete with concerts and other events to secure dates on the calendar.
Garber expressed to reporters in Seattle on Friday, “We want to be the ones that control our destiny, like every sports team does.”
With the Whitecaps currently on the market, Garber is urging British Columbia’s political leaders, including Premier David Eby and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, to find a way to prevent the team from relocating to Las Vegas. Although the government has shown openness to renegotiating its financial terms with the team, constructing a new stadium would take “four-plus years,” a timeline Garber deems unfeasible.
He remarked to reporters in Seattle, “It’s unimaginable how long we’re going to be out of the stadium. They are a very relevant club that doesn’t have a good business model, and you can’t be sustainable.”
During his time in Vancouver, Garber met with Eby and watched the game alongside Carney and Victor Montagliani, the head of the regional soccer confederation CONCACAF and a close associate of the prime minister. Garber has stationed a league official in Vancouver full-time to oversee negotiations regarding the Whitecaps’ future with local authorities.
Garber reiterated, “We want to be the ones that control our destiny, like every sports team does. It’s easier for business people to make decisions, a little harder for politicians.”
