VANCOUVER - he B.C. Pavilion Corp. said Friday it will take legal action against the Vancouver Whitecaps and their sponsor Bell if they do not stop using the term “Bell Pitch” to refer to the soccer field at BC Place Stadium.

PavCo chairman David Podmore told The Vancouver Sun the Crown corporation never conferred any naming rights to either the Whitecaps or Bell when it agreed to a 15-year lease with the soccer club.

He said PavCo began been sending the club and its sponsor notices to “cease and desist” using the term Bell Pitch from the time the Whitecaps moved into BC Place Stadium last spring.

“To be clear about this, neither the Whitecaps nor Bell have any rights to utilize the name Bell Pitch or to name any components of the building or the building itself,” he said.

“PavCo has not given any [of those] rights to any of them. Their rights are limited to advertising within the inner bowl of the stadium and it is very, very clear in the agreement. And we will take the steps necessary to stop them using the term Bell Pitch.”

He described the term as a “blatant ambush which usurps naming rights without compensation” and was particularly angered by recent full-page advertisements by Bell and the Whitecaps describing the facility as “Bell Pitch downtown.” It did not include the name BC Place. “The Whitecaps and Bell can tell you whatever they want, but they do not have that right,” he said.

The dispute is coming to a boil just as Major League Soccer’s Whitecaps host their season opener against the Montreal Impact this afternoon.

Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi said in an email the club has “not received a cease-and-desist order from PavCo.” He did not respond to requests for clarification over whether the soccer club was told by PavCo that it was offside in calling the soccer field Bell Pitch or that it had to stop advertising the term outside of the stadium.

Bell spokesman Jason Laszlo also said, “Bell has never received a cease-and-desist order from PavCo, or anyone related to BC Place or our Whitecaps partnership.”

He too did not return further emails and phone calls by deadline asking for clarification as to whether PavCo had objected to the name “Bell Pitch”or if Bell was aware that there was a dispute over the use of the term.

The dispute’s escalation follows on the heels of a messy decision by the provincial government to cancel an all-but-signed $40-million, 20-year deal between Telus and PavCo to rename BC Place “Telus Park.” The province shot the deal down after it said it wasn’t in the best interests of taxpayers.

Telus and Bell are archrivals in the telecommunications business and Telus is a major sponsor of the B.C. Lions, the other major tenant of BC Place. Podmore has said previously that Bell turned down PavCo’s invitation to participate in bidding rights for renaming the stadium. PavCo, with the knowledge of the government, then recruited Telus as the naming sponsor and negotiated the deal over the last 21 months.