Closed League System

Soccer has never been the number one sports in the United states. This inferiority to basketball, football, baseball is evident in interest, competitiveness, performance on the international stage, production of world class players and the stature of clubs. In 1993 the MLS was introduced as a league similar to the National Football League, National Basketball league and other major sports leagues in the U.S. The MLS was similar in the sense that all clubs were owned by the league and investors negotiated with the league to get profit. This feature couples with some others form the league structure is known as the closed league system. Soccer Clubs from other countries in the world all operate under a different system known as the Open league

Leagues are created with a fixed number of teams with fixed team. Most times The teams are created and owned by the league. New teams cannot freely join the league if they would like to. They’ll need to offer their team and image to the league to be transformed into an expansion team. They existing teams have to approve the entry of these new teams and the investors of the new teams will have to pay a fee which will be shared among existing teams- pay the existing teams. However, most times expansion teams are created by the league itself. In this systems all other leagues of the same sport are considered to be either minor leagues or amateur leagues. Some Major leagues tend to use these minor leagues as development leagues. Another feature which is present in North American closed leagues is the draft system. Most young players who intend to play professional sports are developed in high schools and most times continue their development further in college. Each year, after the season concludes the best players are entered into a draft. Teams in the professional league get to pick players turn by turn in the draft. The worst teams-performance wise- from the previous season get earlier picks as they are considered the teams in need of the better players. Teams can also trade their picks with other teams if they would rather acquire talent through other means, e.g. trades, free

However, the open league system allows the movement between the different leagues of a sport through promotion and relegation. There is a hierarchy among leagues and a select number of teams drop down from leagues through relegation each season. Which teams drop down are decided by their season performance. For example, in the English premier league- the top tier of English soccer - the last three teams on the league table at the end of the season drop down to the second tier, the English championship. Promotion is the movement of the best performing teams from lower tier leagues to the league directly above theirs. The first two teams in the English championship get promoted to the English premier league. Third to sixth teams get draw in a 4 match playoff series with the eventual winner getting promoted. The teams or clubs in this systems are part of a bodies such as the English Football Association (FA) in England, and the Royal Spanish Football Federation in Spain. These associations govern game officials’ new rules, controversies and other