Charlotte Football Club is a planned Major League Soccer expansion team expected to begin play in 2022. The club will play at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. The team is owned by David Tepper, who was awarded the expansion franchise on December 17, 2019.
History
Soccer in Charlotte
The Charlotte area has historically been home to several lower-division soccer teams, dating back to the Carolina Lightnin' in the early 1980s. The Lightnin' won the American Soccer League championship in 1981, played in front of 20,163 people at American Legion Memorial Stadium. After the league folded in 1983, the team played for one season as the Charlotte Gold in United Soccer League before ceasing operations. Professional soccer did not return to Charlotte until the founding of the Charlotte Eagles in 1991, who joined the USISL in 1993.
Charlotte was on the list of cities interested in joining Major League Soccer (MLS) in 1994, prior to the league's inaugural season, but was not awarded a franchise. Charlotte was also named as a potential home for an expansion team in 1996 and 1998, but passed over in favor of other cities. The Charlotte Convention Center hosted the MLS SuperDraft and National Soccer Coaches Association of America conference in January 2004. Since a renovation to Bank of America Stadium in 2014, the city has hosted several friendly and international matches, including the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the International Champions Cup, which drew strong attendance figures. The area also has a large soccer-playing population, centered around recreational leagues that have led other efforts to attract a professional team to Charlotte.
Unsuccessful MLS bids
A separate professional team, the Charlotte Independence, was founded in 2014 and replaced the Eagles in the second division (now named the USL Championship). The team moved into a permanent soccer stadium in Matthews, North Carolina, in 2017. The Independence's ownership group
This page also has a version in other languages : Шарлотт (russian)