ilicon Valley for the 2008 season with the approval of the San Jose Earthquakes as an expansion team. The ownership group is led by Lew Wolff and John Fisher, who also own Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics.
The announcement returns an MLS team to San Jose after a two-year absence. The San Jose Clash was a charter team in the U.S. league in 1996, playing in the San Jose State University's gridiron football stadium, and changed its name to the Earthquakes in 2000 -- reviving the moniker used by the old North American Soccer League team.
Team owner Anschutz Entertainment Group, which also owns the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chicago Fire, moved the team to Houston in 2006 after it was unable to secure a new home for the club.
The new Earthquakes will join the Western Conference, Garber said during his state of the league address in Colorado ahead of Thursday's MLS All-Star game -- a friendly between MLS' best and Scotland's Celtic FC.
The Earthquakes still need approval from the San Jose City Council for plans to build a privately financed soccer stadium near Mineta San Jose International Airport. The stadium is scheduled to seat as many as 20,000 and open in 2010.
The Earthquakes won two MLS Cup titles before relocating to Houston. The Houston team, now known as the Houston Dynamo, won the MLS Cup title last year.
The San Jose Earthquakes will be MLS's 14th team.
Wolff said the Earthquakes will play home games in temporary stadiums for the first two seasons. Negotiations with the venues are ongoing and the locations will be announced soon, Wolff said in a statement.
