EDP Soccer Tuesday announced it had acquired International Sporting Events (iSE).

International Sporting Events specializes in developing and managing youth soccer tournaments at smaller venues.

“EDP Soccer serves over 5,500 teams from New England to Florida with competitive opportunities in leagues, tournaments, and showcases,” EDP Soccer founder and CEO Steve Shilling said. “EDP Soccer’s mission is to support clubs, teams, and their players by providing appropriate levels and formats for competitive play. Currently, EDP Soccer focuses primarily on large venue tournaments and showcases. We want the ability to also provide smaller venue locations and formats to the youth soccer community. iSE does a great job in this area, so it made sense to have iSE join EDP Soccer.”

Stewart Smith, the CEO of iSE, welcomed, this unique opportunity.

“Everyone in the youth soccer community knows the high quality of EDP Soccer’s programming,” he said in a statement. “When iSE was approached by EDP Soccer to provide complementary events to EDP Soccer’s tournaments and showcases, we thought it was a great opportunity to give clubs, teams, and players in the East Region a full range of competitive formats from which to select depending on the levels of play and the travel distances they want. By sharing best practices and logistical resources, EDP Soccer and iSE will offer the youth soccer community events year-round that are high quality, convenient, and appropriately competitive.”

EDP Soccer provides approximately 20 tournaments and 10 showcases a year, including regional showcases in support of the US Youth Soccer National League. iSE annually provides about 12 tournaments, plus additional indoor events. EDP Soccer and iSE will be the largest youth soccer event provider in the East and one of the largest in the country.

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.