Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber said his X account was “compromised” on Wednesday evening, a statement offered after a post on his account called British Columbia Premier David Eby a “liar” earlier in the day.
MLS has been ensnared in a relocation controversy surrounding the Vancouver Whitecaps, who say they have faced serious financial issues as a result of having to play at BC Place, the stadium owned by the province. The long-running saga has most recently seen the Whitecaps connected with a potential move to Las Vegas or Phoenix.
Eby posted a 45-second video clip on his own X account earlier on Thursday. In it, he tells Whitecaps fans that “The Whitecaps are British Columbia, and I want you to know that we are at the table fighting hard to save the Whitecaps.”
Four hours later, Garber’s account responded to Eby.
“Liar liar pants on fire,” read the now-deleted post, with screenshots showing a timestamp of 8pm Pacific time. Around an hour later, that tweet disappeared, with a new post explaining the barb.
“My account was compromised earlier this evening,” Garber wrote in a new post on X, posted at 10pm Pacific time. “The issue has been resolved. I appreciate Premier Eby for taking the time to meet with me today.”
MLS executive VP of communications Dan Courtemanche, who handles communications for Garber, also posted several replies to fans on X on Thursday evening saying Garber had been “hacked.”
Garber was at dinner with US Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone and CEO JT Batson when he was made aware of the X post, said one source with direct knowledge of the situation. Garber, like many other high-profile figures in global sport, does not typically directly manage his social media presence. He has not replied directly to an X post in several years.
Garber has been in Vancouver for Fifa’s congress on Thursday, where he has spent time engaging with local government leaders in regards to the Whitecaps. That situation has grown more tense in recent months, with Whitecaps ownership repeatedly stating that they’ve received widespread interest from potential local ownership groups but have yet to receive any offers.
The team’s ownership says the primary issue with the team is an untenable agreement with PavCo, a crown corporation of the province and the owners of BC Place. Despite a recently renegotiated lease with the company, the Whitecaps are still not an economically viable proposition in Vancouver, the club claims.
“We appreciate the deal very much but it’s not a deal that will solve our problems,” Whitecaps CEO Axel Schuster told the Guardian earlier this month. “I take every dollar that can better our situation but it’s not the gamechanger for us.”
The club has a memorandum of understanding with Vancouver in regards to constructing a soccer-specific stadium in the city, but that process could take years, say local leaders. Schuster called the site a “challenging piece of land … To make the dream come true it needs way more than the Vancouver Whitecaps alone trying to figure it out.”