United Soccer League
American soccer governing body
The United Soccer League (USL) is an organizer of various professional and amateur soccer leagues in the United States league system. It currently organizes its Championship, League One, and League Two for men, its Super League and W League for women, and the USL Academy and USL Youth for youth players. It also organizes the USL Cup, a league cup competition for its professional men's clubs.
The USL began in 1986 as a men's indoor soccer minor league, before branching out into outdoor soccer in 1989. After rebranding as the United States Interregional Soccer League (USISL), it commenced a women's outdoor league (the W-League) and split its men's outdoor league into two pro and one amateur league over the course of 1995–96. Its top pro flight would merge with the American Professional Soccer League to become the A-League in 1997 – a decision influenced by the advent of Major League Soccer (MLS). Its indoor league folded in 1998. The USISL adopted the name United Soccer Leagues in 1999.
In 2011, a number of USL clubs broke away to form the North American Soccer League, necessitating the merger of its two pro leagues into one. The USL also took ownership of the Major Indoor Soccer League, though it and the W-League would fold by 2015.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “United Soccer League” is american soccer governing body. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, Soccer and League, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “United Soccer League” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.