MLS takes a look at Portland

Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber touched down Tuesday in Portland to see for himself: Could the city support an MLS club?

“Here we are in ‘Soccer City USA’ and we don’t have Major League Soccer. There’s irony there,” Garber mused Tuesday morning after a 45-minute tour of PGE Park under drizzly skies.

Garber’s visit spoke to the preliminary stages of an effort to bring a new MLS franchise to either Portland or Seattle by 2010. The league has quietly been discussing that possibility for at least six months with an investment group Garber declined to identify. The investors first envisioned Seattle as the locale for an expansion franchise, then in the past three to four months added Portland as another viable option, he said.

 – Excerpt from The Oregonian, March 28, 2007