Some good news for those in St. Louis who are wanting a MLS club in their city. Jeff Cooper, the man leading the charge for the St. Louis expansion, appears to have gotten the financial backing that he has been looking for.

As we all know Cooper and St. Louis have a stadium deal in place but weren’t able to get enough financial backing for the league’s liking back in January when Philadelphia was chosen over then for the 16th expansion site in MLS.

Cooper spoke to KMOX “Sports On Sunday” to announce that he has finalized a deal with their ownership group and that he will be resubmitting his bid to MLS for St. Louis. Cooper sounds really confident about his ownership group too. He went to Europe to get some investors in this group, so they should have plenty of backing in the bank.

After listening to this, it sounds to me that St. Louis is back in the driver’s seat for the 17th or 18th expansion club in 2011. Listen for yourself below.

A lot of talk over the last couple of weeks about the next round of MLS expansion. First we talked about Portland, then Vancouver and Montreal. Today our tour takes us to St. Louis.

The hopes of a MLS expansion bid for Jeff Cooper went down a bit when they lost out to Philadelphia for the 16th bid into the league. The league stated St. Louis needed a better financial backing with Cooper. It appears though that Cooper is real close to having that backing that was asked of him.

Cooper thinks he is close to surmounting the final hurdle: getting enough investors. The stadium deal remains in place in Collinsville and awaits a final vote, which won’t happen until after St. Louis gets a team.

“We’re closer than we’ve ever been,” said Cooper, who has thought he was close before. “As you go through this process, you learn what the definition of ‘close’ really means. … I think it will happen this summer.”

He said some potential investors have local ties and others don’t.

St. Louis has wildly been considered the front-runner for the next bid into the league. MLS has stated on numerous occasions they want a team in St. Louis. It will pretty much happen whether or not people in other towns like it.

With Cooper close to getting the nod for the Gateway City, it seems like it could be only a matter of time before an official announcement is made by the league. This smells like an All-Star break announcement to me if those investors come through. Though the league could wait out and try to get two cities announced around the same time for a change.

A lot can easily change between now and the year 2012 in Major League Soccer. But after yesterday’s comments in Montreal made by MLS commissioner Don Garber, the league may be expanding more now than we really had ever thought it would.

When addressing the expansion probability for Montreal on a day that they opened their new stadium (Stade Saputo), Garber said his usual 18-club league by the next few years but did add that they feel like they could do more than that. He didn’t explain how many more cities or how long of a time frame for that.

The main point he made was that the league is going to take their time and get it right. Team values are going up as well as the expansion fees for these cities. The cities in the mix are just hoping to cash in on the fun before its too late here.

Now this isn’t a talk about the league expanding too quickly or things that need to be in place for the league to expand to 18 or even 20 clubs. We know those things and will be able to point them out at another time. I’m sure MLS is looking at the long-term picture of the league here and is hoping to finish shaping the league’s expansion over the next five to 10 years. I just wanted to take time today and throw out what each city has to offer and what still needs to be done with each.

The latest rounds of expansion have easily been the best the league has seen in it’s short history. Getting clubs in towns like Toronto, Seattle and Philly were key for the league. Its paid off too as Toronto continues to sellout their stadium, Seattle has reportedly gotten between 15,000-16,000 season ticket holders for next year, and Philly is nearing in on the 6,000 season ticket total for when they start in 2010.

Its obviously a good thing for cities like Montreal, Portland and Vancouver to be in the spot light in recent weeks for various reasons. Each are hoping to be one of those next two expansion cities but just as the other hopefuls they all have work to do.

Garber said they would know where they want to go within the next year. So don’t be too shocked to see cities pop up in the discussion over the next couple of months, especially before the All-Star game. Each will want to put their best foot forward in hopes to get that next bid for the 17th and 18th spots in MLS.

So let’s break it down about what each has to offer MLS (no particular order here either). I may miss a point or two so feel free to comment on them below. Continue Reading…