New soccer team rejects Flushing Meadows for Yankee Stadium

Queens’ Flushing Meadows Corona Park is officially out of the running as the city’s latest soccer venue. Yankee Stadium in the Bronx has been tapped to host the new soccer team, called the New York City F.C., DNAinfo reported.

Major League Soccer announced in May it would form the league’s 20th team in the city, to be jointly owned by Manchester City owner Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan and the New York Yankees, as previously reported.

League commissioner Don Garber had said that it was “pretty clear that the league’s preferred site was Queens,” and the plan was for the team to play at Yankee Stadium temporarily in 2015 while a permanent home was established.

But parks advocates criticized the choice, saying that it took advantage of public land for commercial use.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said during his radio address Sunday that New York City Football Club, the first soccer club in the five boroughs since the 1970s, will share a home with the Bronx Bombers. [DNAinfo] – Mark Maurer