Don Garber on Montreal, Beckham Ownership, New MLS Cup Format

SEATTLE -- David Beckham could be an MLS owner in 2012 and the league is considering letting the higher-seeded finalist host MLS Cup as early as next year, Commissioner Don Garber said at halftime of Sunday evening's championship game at Qwest Field. Meeting with journalists, including FanHouse, during what he called "a very memorable night for soccer in America," Garber touched on those issues, the designated player rule, expansion and more. Take a look at his comments after the jump.

On expansion and the prospect of Montreal entering the league:

"The ownership group is here, and we spent some time meeting this weekend. We made some progress. We hope to have a 19th team in the league by 2012 and Montreal is clearly the leading candidate there [Philadelphia will be the 16th next year, and Portland and Vancouver are scheduled to join in 2011].

But we've got some work to do. Most importantly, that stadium needs to be renovated. It needs to be expanded. You see what's going on here [in Seattle] -- [Saputo Stadium] is probably not suitable for an MLS team today. So we're going to work with the Saputo family and the provincial government and try to make some progress on funding the renovation."

On David Beckham as an owner:

"He's not [involved with Montreal]. We didn't talk about this until recently, but as many of you know ... David has the option for our 20th team. That option can't be exercised until after 2011 or until after he stops playing. So we've got some time to figure that one out."

[Garber said earlier that he doesn't see MLS growing beyond 20 clubs "in our generation."]

On holding the MLS Cup final at the home of one of the participants:

"We haven't made a decision on whether next year's match will be at a neutral site or whether it will move to a format where it will be hosted by the team that earns that right. We'll deal with that over the next couple of months. If it is going to not be a neutral site, it'll just be one game. It will not be a home-and-home.

We haven't made any decision, and part of the thing that we're excited about [is] all the events and activities, and planning the time that's necessary to make it a big event, and just judging by the number of people that are here today, this is a big event. I think that neutral site gives us that opportunity. But I think we're getting to the point where the fans matter more than anything else. And a home fan deserves the right, whether it's in a small market like Kansas City or a temporary stadium like San Jose, to host a final. And that's what we're trying to manage through."

On choosing Seattle as the host despite the artificial turf [which FanHouse played on before the game and found incredibly slick and challenging]:

"I was down there. It's pretty quick. We don't really have much of a choice here. I think it's fair to say that this was a pretty good place to host the MLS Cup. The alternative was not doing it here and playing on grass, or playing it here on artificial surface. I think all of us would agree it should be here. You'd love to find a situation where we have grass everywhere. Toronto will be going over to grass as most of you people know. I'm not sure that all of our stadiums will be that way. We just have to manage what we have, basically."

On expanding the Designated Player rule:

"It's clear that the L.A. Galaxy are a big proponent of the Designated Player rule, but I can assure you that no decision's been made regarding the Designated Player rule and frankly no discussions are going to be held at the board level on the Designated Player rule or salary budgets or any other things related to what we spend on players until after we get through our [collective bargaining agreement] negotiations.

And I'll tell you those discussions are ongoing. They have been productive. We understand and accept the fact that it's going to be tough negotiation, but we're very committed to putting together a deal that will be good for players and a deal that will be good for management, so that we can continue to grow the sport.

It's a sign of our development that we're having these kinds of discussions and we're committed to doing a deal that makes sense for everybody. We've got a couple of months to get that done and until that time we're going to really not spend any time internally thinking about what our future spending is."

[The current agreement expires Jan. 31]

On Beckham, Cuauhtemoc Blanco, possibly Landon Donovan and others leaving the league next season:

"It's part of the development of the league. We're going to shut down for two weeks during the World Cup. David will be there, Landon will be there, Blanco's going to be playing for Mexico. My hope and expectation is that Blanco comes back, certainly David will be back for the rest of '10 and all of 2011, and the country here and in Canada is going to be so explosive with the World Cup, we actually think it's going to be a boost to the league."

On whether Seattle's success puts pressure on struggling franchises in Dallas, Kansas City, New England and Denver:

"I don't know that it's pressure as much as it's aspiration. When what we've been able to achieve here comes come, what we achived in Toronto--I don't know if I mentioned this in our last press call but Toronto has 16,000 people on their waiting list. That's in addition to the 18,000 seats that they have as season tickets for their regular season. Toronto set the stage for Seattle and now all of our teams need to sort of take the best practices that have worked in some of our more successful markets. We're not the only league that has good performers and medium performers and poor performers, but at least we see what we could be and I think many of those markets are going to work hard to achieve it.

They absolutely have the ambition. I hear that a lot. They have the ambition. But look, every market's different. Every stadium's different. Every ownership group is different. Some of the stadiums might be located outside of town. Remember that one of the formulas here is the downtown stadium. But if we didn't have a stadium in Frisco, we wouldn't have a team in Dallas, and I'd rather have a team in Dallas than wait as long as we needed to wait for a downtown stadium."