The USL could be set to introduce a promotion and relegation system in a first for soccer stateside amid a milestone vote on the prospect.
Officially viewed by the country's football governing body US Soccer as below MLS in its standing, the division currently has 24 teams but no relegation. In the case of FC Cinncinati and Nashville SC, the clubs joined the US' flagship league back in 2018 and 2020, respectively, while a host of MLS clubs fielded second string teams in the USL before the development of MLS Next Pro.
Looking to potentially take the USL into a new era, a plan has been mooted for three professional tiers, with this hypothetical restructuring likely to occur in 2024, according to the Athletic. If the plans were passed by the lower-division’s board of governors, this would make the competition the format the first open league system in US soccer history.
The proposals are the realisation of work which began midway through 2021, when the panel proposed working towards implementing relegation into the USL's second and third tiers. The report states that a group of governors who will convene between August 9-10 in Colorado Springs.
They will specifically vote on whether "ownership at the leagues’ clubs has enough collective interest to merit further work toward implementing an open system among the USL’s professional competitions", as per the report. As it stands, it is not certain that the plans will, indeed, be passed by the board.
Those advocating the shift in approach have expressed the opinion that the introduction of relegation would ensure more stability for the USL, while also potentially driving up interest from the wider public. The report in the Athletic also states that the creation of a league between the USL's Championship and League One is also being considered.
This potential sea change in how the USL operates comes at an exciting time in the history of club soccer in the US, with the MLS set to welcome superstar Lionel Messi to ambitious franchise Inter Miami. Whether the USL's proposal will influence MLS to potentially go down a similar path, however, remains to be seen.
Speaking previously to Mirror Football , the flagship US league's commissioner Don Garber hinted that introducing promotion and relegation could well be an option later down the line. However, he was steadfast in his belief that this would require an ecosystem to develop over time, which could then allow the MLS to follow the lead of European leagues in introducing a pyramid model.
He asserted: "The league needs to be larger for all the reasons that make sense. Not the least that we're trying to grow the connectivity of a professional league in a market/environment when you don't have to worry about that in any other country in the world. I'll be in Germany in the end of March, their football scene has been there for 100 years. We're creating it a new.
"I say that not knowing, but I live in a world where there's never a time for 'never'. Who knows what the world is going to look like? I do think the ecosystem of professional soccer is evolving, but we're a long way away from what exists in the rest of the football-playing world. We're a long way away from that.
Garber added: "In order to have promotion/relegation you have to have the ecosystem in the pro game that can support it. That doesn't exist today, but who knows what will happen in the future? I've given up trying to predict where soccer in North America can go because it's over-delivered on all our expectations."
