USL Championship Announces Return Date

Thursday afternoon the USL Championship announced that they plan to return to play on July 11th after their Board of Governors voted in favor of a return to play. Additional information on competition format, scheduling, broadcast, and other important details are still in the works, planning to be announced in the coming weeks.

The USL also confirmed that the return to play will be conducted in strict alignment with all local and state public health guidelines and USL HQ remains in regular dialogue with the USL Players Association.

Sports Illustrated reported that the USL plan to return does not include a hub, like MLS is using in Orlando, but each club is expecting to play at their home venues. It is unclear if the USL expects to be able to host fans for matches.

Similar to the MLS, a very young USL season was put on hold after just one week of matches. In that week, Sporting Kansas City II suffered a 2-1 loss to the Charlotte Independence.

SKC II manager Paulo Nagamura appeared on the Sporting Kansas City Show, where he said his team is now doing small group training, but also reminisced about the 2012 US Open Cup victory over the Seattle Sounders, which was the first trophy since rebranding and broke an eight year trophy drought, which will re-air at 7:00 and 9:00 PM on Saturday on Fox Sports Midwest with player commentary from Nagamura and Jimmy Nielsen.

It’s been over three months since a game was played, so you can read our Sporting KC II season preview to get caught up.

UPDATE: We have been told that the USL will announce a return to full team training “in the near future.” - Thad Bell