MLS names San Diego as 30th team, to debut in 2025 - ESPN

SAN DIEGO — Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber announced Thursday that the city of San Diego has been handed an expansion franchise, thereby increasing the league to 30 teams.

The news was revealed during an event at Snapdragon Stadium, which is set to be the 35,000-capacity home for the San Diego franchise when it debuts in 2025. MLS' latest expansion team will be owned by Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour, the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation (now the first Native American tribe to co-own a U.S. professional soccer team) and San Diego Padres star Manny Machado.

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«We are thrilled to welcome San Diego to Major League Soccer as our 30th team,» Garber said in a Thursday news release. «For many years we have believed San Diego would be a terrific MLS market due to its youthful energy, great diversity, and the fact that soccer is an essential part of everyday life for so many people. Mohamed Mansour and the Sycuan Tribe have an incredible vision for building a club that will inspire and unite soccer fans throughout the city and region.»

«I am grateful for the opportunity to join the San Diego MLS ownership group,» added Machado in the press release. «I continue to plant roots in this amazing community that means so much to me and build upon my connection with the incredible fans.»

Additional owners include the Zephyr Partners' Brad Termini and the Right to Dream's Tom Vernon and Dan Dickinson. Controlled by Mansour's London-based Man Capital firm, the Right to Dream is a Ghana-based academy that also owns the Danish top flight's Nordsjaelland. MLS players including the New England Revolution's Emmanuel Boateng and FC Dallas' Ema Twumasi are products of the