Major League Soccer’s board of governors voted Thursday to move the start of the league’s nine-month season from February to July beginning in 2027.
“The calendar shift is one of the most important decisions in our history,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. “Aligning our schedule with the world’s top leagues will strengthen our clubs’ global competitiveness, create better opportunities in the transfer market, and ensure our Audi MLS Cup Playoffs take center stage without interruption. It marks the start of a new era for our league and for soccer in North America.”
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The governors, meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., also reportedly discussed a proposal that would rank the league’s 30 teams in a single table rather than in two conferences. Both changes would align MLS with most of the world’s other top-tier leagues, which play a fall-to-spring schedule with one standings table.
Changing the schedule also will allow the league to better sync up with both the primary and second transfer windows used by the rest of the world and with FIFA’s international calendar, dates on which teams are required to release players to their national teams.
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This month’s FIFA break forced MLS to pause its playoff tournament for two weeks between the first and second rounds.
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“This is a great step forward for MLS to be on par with the top leagues in the world,” U.S. men’s coach Mauricio Pochettino said. “Having managed club teams and now the U.S. national team, the ability to align with the international calendar will have a huge positive impact for the players, coaches and clubs.
“This also extends beyond the senior national teams; it will allow us to have access to the youth national team players during critical periods of international competition, further advancing their development.”
The governors have been discussing the move for at least two years and had hoped to have a new schedule format in place by next season, when the World Cup returns to North America for five weeks during the middle of the MLS season. But pushback from a handful of teams and the need to negotiate the changes with the players association delayed things.
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The league is continuing discussions with the union over how to implement the changes. Under the current proposal, the MLS regular season would run from late July or early August through April, with a winter break in December and January. The playoffs would he held in late May, moving them out from under the shadow of the NFL and college football seasons.
Garber has long been pushing for the move, telling reporters at last summer’s MLS All-Star Game “that alignment is something that makes sense.”
When MLS began play in 1996 it chose to play most of its games in the spring and summer to avoid conflicts with the NFL. In its inaugural season, all 10 of the league’s teams played in NFL or college football stadiums. This season 22 of the 30 teams played in soccer-specific venues.
Playing through the winter months will have a huge impact on training and games for teams in harsh climates such as Salt Lake City, Toronto, Minnesota, Colorado, Montreal and New England. However the same could be said of summer matches in the oppressive heat and humidity of Florida and Texas.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
