List of American and Canadian Soccer Champions

List Of American And Canadian Soccer Champions

Despite each receiving FIFA-affiliated status in 1913, both the United States and Canada have lacked a consistent, multi-division soccer system until recently. Consequently, the determination of champions has been problematic at times. The United States did not have a truly national league until the North American Soccer League in the late 1960s. Before that, there were several regional and city leagues of various levels of quality. For example, the first and second American Soccer Leagues constituted the premier level of professional soccer in the Northeastern United States, but they and teams from the St. Louis Soccer League would regularly defeat the best the other had to offer. These are only two of the most notable leagues of the regional era, as there were professional and amateur competitions in Chicago, California, the greater Western United States, Ontario, and Western Canada, among several other areas. While the creation of the North American Soccer League in 1968 brought a bona fide, national Division One league to the U.S. and Canada, its collapse in 1984 saw a temporary return to the fragmented regional structure. The merger of the Western Soccer League and third American Soccer League created a Division Two-level national league in the U.S. (the American Professional Soccer League), which later absorbed the Division Two-level Canadian Soccer League. But it was until not until the establishment of Major League Soccer in 1996 as part of FIFA's agreement to award the United States the 1994 World Cup that there was again a truly national, first division in either country (Canada would not see an MLS team until 2007; until then the top Canadian teams resided in Division Two).

Given all of this, there is a broad history of champions of various kinds in the history of both countries, both in leagues that comprised both nations and cups that were held in only one. This article takes into account all these competitions to compile an accurate listing of American and Canadian soccer champions with an eye towards maintaining continuity.