{"id":2544,"date":"2016-11-30T00:29:56","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T05:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/?p=2544"},"modified":"2016-11-30T00:29:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T05:29:56","slug":"don-garber-visits-cincinnati-mls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2016\/11\/30\/don-garber-visits-cincinnati-mls\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Garber Visits Cincinnati for MLS Town Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

MLS<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0commissioner Don Garber<\/strong> visited Cincinnati<\/strong> on Tuesday as a first step in assessing the city’s upstart USL<\/strong> club as a MLS expansion candidate. FC Cincinnati<\/a><\/strong> quickly became\u00a0a relevant name in the expansion conversation after breaking\u00a0multiple USL attendance records<\/a> in their first season.<\/p>\n

Major League Soccer’s chief executive\u00a0set out on a full day of scouting activities after being greeted\u00a0at Lunken\u00a0airport by a raucous welcoming committee of FC Cincinnati supporters.<\/p>\n

Don Garber Visits Cincinnati for MLS Town Hall<\/h2>\n

He met with the club’s\u00a0ownership, the\u00a0executive team and Cincinnati’s Mayor, John Cranley<\/strong>. Garber\u00a0toured Nippert Stadium<\/strong>, the 92 year old venue on the campus of the University of Cincinnati<\/strong> where the team currently plays. He took a tour of the city’s urban\u00a0core\u00a0and toasted\u00a0supporters groups at a pub in the Over The Rhine<\/strong> historic district.<\/p>\n

The day ended with the trip’s marquee event, a public Town Hall meeting held at\u00a0the Woodward Theatre<\/strong>. The event was hosted by Taylor Twellman<\/strong>, ESPN’s<\/strong> lead MLS and U.S. Men’s National Team<\/strong> analyst. Garber took the stage after\u00a0opening remarks\u00a0by team owner Carl Lindner III<\/strong>\u00a0and general manager Jeff Berding<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Soccer Don<\/em>, with support from Twellman, Berding,\u00a0and head coach John Harkes<\/strong>\u00a0fielded a variety of questions related to expansion, his impressions of Cincinnati, and his assessment of the club’s first year performance in the USL.<\/p>\n

The takeaway\u00a0sentiment he conveyed was\u00a0that FC Cincinnati is a legitimate\u00a0contender for expansion, but there\u2019s still work to do.\u00a0As expected, the commissioner did not offer any specific timelines on FC Cincinnati’s candidacy for MLS. He also cited the need for MLS to clarify its expansion plan, and alluded to\u00a0issues that are causing uncertainty to the overall picture (most notably the situation with the Miami bid).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot that we need to figure out as a league (MLS) and there is a lot that still needs to be done here\u2026to continue to build this club, to continue to grow its\u00a0fanbase, to continue to figure out what its long term stadium solution is. I am very impressed by what\u2019s happening here. Cincinnati deserves a MLS team. Every journey starts with a first step and that\u00a0first step was today.\u201d<\/p>\n

FC Cincinnati finished third in the USL’s Eastern Conference<\/strong> but was eliminated from the playoffs in the first round by the Charleston Battery<\/strong>. John Harkes and his team will embark on their second USL campaign\u00a0in March of 2017.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Orange and Blue Press<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MLS\u00a0commissioner Don Garber visited Cincinnati on Tuesday as a first step in assessing the city’s upstart USL club as a MLS expansion candidate. FC Cincinnati quickly became\u00a0a relevant name in the expansion conversation after breaking\u00a0multiple USL attendance records in their first season. Major League Soccer’s chief executive\u00a0set out on a full day of scouting activities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1653,"featured_media":2554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[68,3,26],"tags":[636,70,113,192,57,51,637,61],"class_list":["post-2544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mls-expansion","category-news","category-usl","tag-cincinnati","tag-don-garber","tag-fc-cincinnati","tag-john-harkes","tag-mls","tag-mls-expansion","tag-taylor-twellman","tag-usl"],"modified_by":"Joe Hojnacki","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}