It sounds like another MLS expansion bid could be dead. Marcelo Claure told newspapers in Bolivia (thanks to Marc S. for the translation) that there is now a 50% chance that Miami could get an expansion bid with Major League Soccer.

Claure states that “today I would say that this [Miami franchise] will not happen”. “I think, and this is being optimistic, we have 50% chances to get the franchise”, he added.

Claure also stated economic reasons and even put some blame on the whole David Beckham soap opera.

Either way this doesn’t sound too good for the Miami bid going into the final stretch of days before the league announces the two expansion sites.

You can read more of this article here (in Spanish). I hope to have more on this later.

Sorry Miami folks. There just won’t be any news regarding your potential MLS club today. Earlier some had thought there would be news regarding Marcelo Claure and his visit with Barcelona FC in Spain. But according to Total Futbol in Miami there will be no news given today.

Any notion that an announcement would be made by the league regarding Miami today was indeed premature.

But if some news does come down about Claure’s meeting with Barca and if he was able to keep them on board in the bid we may get that later on today. Its just a wait and see game right now for this bid.

Talk about some crazy and potentially huge news for some. According to the Miami Herald (and some other Spanish reports) Barcelona could be backing out of the Miami expansion bid due to the current economy.

But on Friday, FC Barcelona director Jean Oliver said at a news conference that the club’s quest to have an MLS team is “very delicate, and we are evaluating if the situation allows for the model planned to be implemented in Miami or not.”

He said the team is reviewing the deal, negotiating, and that he would rather commit when “there was not financial risk to the club.”

Oliver added: “The economic situation in the United States is very complicated. What are we doing? Evaluating with great care to see if the change in the economic situation means the project is not viable right now. We said we’d have a team in MLS if there was no financial risk to the club. But the situation with the American economy right now forces us to be more prudent to make sure this risk doesn’t exist. The risk now is greater than it was when we made the announcement.”

With a couple weeks left before the announcement of the two expansion spots this is a big break for some expansion bids and terrible news for Miami supporters.

I’ve read over a few things and it looks like both Barca and Marcelo Claure are just evaluating the current landscape of things. Claure has always been seen as the one that would be putting the cash behind the majority of this club and Barca would throw in whatever else was needed. At least that’s how it has always been present to me, I could be wrong on that.

Still for the biggest chip on the table to possibly leave this bid before the expansion bids are announced by the league is a huge thing. I’ve said for a while that since the league hasn’t granted Miami anything by now that something is going on with it that maybe the league didn’t care for. And this could be part of it.

I still believe Miami is in even with this news but I am slowly starting to think that we could see two more Canadian clubs in the league before it is all said and done here. Just a weird hunch.