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Major League Soccer continues rapid growth as it's revealed 26 teams will compete by 2020

The league started out with 10 teams when it first began in 1996.

THOUGH THE LOWER tiers of North American football are dealing with an uncertain future currently, Major League Soccer continues to go from strength to strength.

It’s been announced that the league will add a further six teams over the course of the next four years – a remarkable increase of over 25% in that period.

Currently with 20 teams playing across two conferences, Atlanta FC and Minnesota United will compete from next season onwards. Another Los Angeles franchise, LAFC, will join in 2018 while plans are still in place to welcome a Miami team (which will be co-owned by David Beckham) as MLS’s 24th club.

After that, there’s a string of interested investors right across the United States: markets like Charlotte, Detroit, Nashville, San Antonio and San Diego have all publicly expressed an interest in joining MLS.

Beckham MLS Soccer David Beckham will co-own a team in Miami, though the project has taken a long time to get off the ground due to issues with finding a suitable location for a stadium. Lynne Sladky Lynne Sladky

The 25th and 26th teams will be officially confirmed later in 2017 and will pay $150 million each for the privilege of joining.

But MLS aren’t interested in stopping anytime soon and want to expand to a 28-team league sooner rather than later.

Going by the rapid growth in recent seasons, they won’t have any trouble in doing so with many businessmen across the United States desperately wanting a piece of the MLS pie.

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7 Comments
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    Mute Frankie Burke
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    Dec 16th 2016, 5:35 PM

    All thanks to the supreme leader Amazing John Delaney!!

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    Mute Cillian James Gowan
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    Dec 16th 2016, 6:21 PM

    How will they manage so many teams in one league? Would it be like the NFL with multiple conferences?

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    Mute Darren Doyle
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    Dec 16th 2016, 6:34 PM

    I was just thinking that myself..surely they’ll have to break it up if they expand by that much

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    Mute Ardmore02
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    Dec 16th 2016, 7:00 PM

    The league is already split up into eastern and western conferences.

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    Mute William Kavanagh
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    Dec 16th 2016, 7:51 PM

    @Ardmore02: it will be east and west, but how they handle play off will be interesting. Will they expand it now?

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    Mute Ardmore02
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    Dec 16th 2016, 7:59 PM

    Not sure. Already 12 teams go into playoffs. If they expand the playoffs, the playoffs could last two months. Who am I to suggest, but seeing as their is no promotion relegation between mls and nasl, I would suggest have a second league with promotion relegation called MLS2 or something. Not dissimilar to LOI.

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    Mute William Kavanagh
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    Dec 16th 2016, 8:17 PM

    @Ardmore02: many here will not get that,mp,aying a whole season not being able to win the big prize. 12 is also not a natural number for knock outs, so 4 more, with two rounds off one off games, like the first round they have now….

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