Concacaf, MLS and Liga MX on Tuesday afternoon unveiled a new club competition structure that will reshape men’s professional soccer across the region and especially in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The revised Concacaf Champions League format and enlarged, inclusive Leagues Cup tournament, which will feature every MLS and Liga MX team, supplant the previous overhaul unveiled in early February. The modified competitions will kick off in 2023-24.
The current CCL is a 16-team, bracketed competition. It was supposed to make way for a massive 50-team event in the fall of 2023 that would begin with 10 regionalized groups, including four covering the three North American nations. But that plan has now been scrapped in favor of a more streamlined 27-club, bracketed tournament featuring 18 North American entrants to be played for the first time in the spring of 2024.
“Fans want to see knockout situations,” Concacaf president Victor Montagliani said Tuesday.
MLS will furnish five U.S.-based teams based on league results, and a sixth American side will qualify via the U.S. Open Cup. Liga MX will send six clubs, and there will now be three bids awarded to Canadian teams—one through the Canadian Championship and two via the Canadian Premier League. Three additional spots then will be granted to the top three finishers in the expanded Leagues Cup, the MLS-Liga MX tournament that, from 2023, will involve all 47 members of the region’s top two domestic circuits.
Launched in 2019 as part of the competitive partnership between MLS and Liga MX, the Leagues Cup has been an underwhelming, eight-team knockout event with inconsistent qualifying criteria and minimal stakes. The 2021 edition, its second following last year’s cancellation, will conclude with Wednesday night’s final between the Seattle Sounders and Club León.
In 2023, however, it will grow exponentially and become a tentpole fixture on the North American calendar. MLS and Liga MX will pause their campaigns starting in late July/early August so all 47 members (48 once MLS reaches 30 clubs) can focus on the Leagues Cup.
Kelvin Kuo/USA TODAY Sports
There are still several unknown details, but it’s understood that the new Leagues Cup format will comprise a group stage followed by knockout rounds (eventually 16 groups of three feeding a single-elimination round of 32), with prize money increasing as the competition progresses. It will continue to be staged in the U.S. and Canada, at least in the near term, and will qualify three clubs to the new CCL. Among the unannounced or unresolved issues: It’s unclear how the cup will be seeded/bracketed, whether there will be a third-place game or how eliminated teams will spend the remainder of the Leagues Cup break.
“It’s a much more authentic and official format,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said.
The reigning MLS Cup winner will continue to play its Liga MX counterpart in the one-off Campeones Cup (this year’s features the Columbus Crew and Cruz Azul on Sept. 29), and MLS teams also will continue to participate in the U.S. Open Cup, which will resume in 2022 following a two-year hiatus.
The remainder of the 27-team CCL field will be filled out by clubs from Central America and the Caribbean. A new Central American tournament will furnish six clubs and an additional three will book passage from the Caribbean. Five teams—the champions of MLS, Liga MX (one of the two crowned each year), Leagues Cup, Central America and the Caribbean—will earn byes to the CCL’s round of 16. The other 22 will contest a home-and-home opening round.
The 2022 and 2023 CCLs will be played as traditional 16-team events featuring four U.S.-based MLS teams yet to be determined plus the Canadian Championship winner. The 2021 edition will be decided by Club América and host Monterrey on Oct. 28.
More Soccer Coverage: