United States Soccer League System - Structure

Structure

Unlike many countries' soccer league systems, in the United States, no professional league uses merit-based promotion and relegation to allow teams to move between divisions. The country's governing body for the sport, the United States Soccer Federation (also known as the USSF or US Soccer), oversees the system and is responsible for sanctioning professional leagues, and the leagues themselves are responsible for admitting and administering individual teams. Amateur soccer in the United States is regulated by the United States Adult Soccer Association, the only amateur soccer organization sanctioned by the USSF.

Limited forms of promotion and relegation have existed in the past; for example, the United Soccer Leagues previously ran multiple sanctioned leagues, between which teams could voluntarily move, although this was largely unused. Several franchises had been voluntarily relegated from the First Division to the Second, and occasionally from the professional ranks to the PDL, usually to reduce operating costs or to re-structure the organization of the franchise in question. Similarly, some franchises have been given the opportunity to move up to a higher level having found success in the lower divisions—most recently USL2 champions Cleveland City Stars moving to USL1 in 2009—but this was not a regular occurrence. Automatic relegation between the two leagues, as exists in many other national league systems, was considered by the USL, but was never implemented.

Some amateur leagues sanctioned by the USASA also use promotion and relegation systems within multiple levels of their leagues. However, there has never been a merit-based promotion system offered to the USASA's "national" leagues, the NPSL and the PDL.

College soccer in the United States is sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association rather than by the USSF.