Even with its stadiums shuttered and players on lockdown, Major League Soccer’s influence over the sport in the USA and Canada is expanding. With two rapid-fire announcements on Wednesday evening, one from MLS and one from the U.S. Soccer Federation, the first-tier professional league assumed de facto control over the highest level of American youth player development.
First came word from the USSF that the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, the governing body’s ambitious initiative that imposed training and coaching standards (including banning high school play) while pitting the country’s top clubs against each other in year-round competition, was shutting down immediately.