David Beckham’s quest to secure an MLS stadium site in Miami "has dragged on for months, leaving unclear whether MLS will actually make its return" to South Florida, and league Commissioner Don Garber on Friday made clear that the venture "is not yet a guarantee," according to Ives Galarcep of GOAL.com. Garber: "I do believe that there is a deal to get done there, so the comment on it ‘when, not if’ was very much about that I believe that there is a possibility for us to be in Miami, but it does need to be right. Just because an opportunity exists doesn't mean that we're going to close on that deal because we want to be sure that any new team has the opportunity to be successful." Garber "is expected to travel to Miami in the near future to try and help Beckham’s bid" (GOAL.com, 5/1). Meanwhile, outgoing Univ. of Miami President Donna Shalala said the football team's current home of Sun Life Stadium is "too big and cavernous for a college of our size." The AP's Tim Reynolds noted Shalala thus "has been engaged in conversations" with Beckham's group. The MLS deal "is a long way from completed, and even if Miami shared a stadium with a new soccer club it would still have to find a way out of its lease with Sun Life Stadium." Still, it is "something Shalala thinks is worth pursuing." She said, "We've had two tenancies, one at the Orange Bowl and one at Dolphins Stadium, and I don't much like being a tenant." She thinks that more intimate settings "may become the national norm before long" (AP, 5/1).
