MIAMI – CONACAF announced Thursday its Council’s approval of the CONCACAF League of Nations, a new national team competition platform designed to maximize the quality, quantity and frequency of competitive matches for all 41 CONCACAF associations.

The announcement came following a year-long development and consultation process involving the member associations and key stakeholders.

The competition will be based on a league structure. All 41 CONCACAF associations will be included, divided in three leagues, based on their sporting level, with a champion to be crowned at the end of each edition. To seed associations into their respective leagues, the League of Nations will begin with a preliminary series of matches played across four dates beginning September 2018.

The new tournament will bring meaningful home and away matches featuring competition for league titles and performance prizes and will include promotion and relegation within the system of three leagues. The confederation’s teams will also contend via the League of Nations structure for the right to play international championships such as the Gold Cup.

The League of Nations will inform a CONCACAF ranking system that will be used as the basis for future World Cup qualifying seeding.

“This is a watershed moment for CONCACAF. By focusing on football to provide all our teams with year-round, quality competition, the League of Nations platform means everyone wins,” said CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani said in a statement. “This new tournament is highly beneficial to all our member associations and fans everywhere, since it provides significant opportunities to play important competitive matches with increased regularity throughout the year.”

CONCACAF has worked with its Member Associations over the past year to develop a competition for national teams, with the goal of improving the quality and standing of football within the region. The process for developing this new competition, anchored on the key principle of providing more meaningful games to all national teams in order to increase competitiveness/

CONCACAF nations that haven’t historically been top performers will benefit from a wider window of opportunity, not only for competitive matches but for gaining access to top level international competitions.

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.