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TAMPA, Fla. - The United Soccer League (USL) confirmed on Thursday the founding members of the USL Academy League’s Southeast Division. The inaugural season of Academy League play is due to kick off in spring 2021 and will provide clubs in all three of the USL's senior divisions with elite youth development and competition platform.
The six clubs set to compete in the Southeast Division of the inaugural USL Academy League are as follows:⠀
Birmingham Legion FC: Birmingham, AL (USL Championship)
East Atlanta FC: Atlanta, GA (USL League Two)
Peachtree City MOBA: Atlanta, GA (USL League Two)
South Carolina United: Columbia, SC (USL League Two)
South Georgia Tormenta FC: Statesboro, GA (USL League One)
Southern Soccer Academy: Atlanta, GA (USL League Two)
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Reacting to the news, SSA’s Executive Director Simon Davey said, "These are clearly very exciting times for our organization, and we’re extremely proud to part of the USL Academy Southeast Division. The USL Academy provides our players with a clear pathway into our USL 2 senior team. Along with this announcement, we are also delighted to announce we’ve started work on our new Marathon Park Signature Soccer complex. The club continues to invest money back into the foundation of its organization, and this complex will provide outstanding facilities to host our USL Academy league play. We now consider ourselves one of the leading youth soccer organization in Georgia”.
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The structure of the USL Academy League provides USL clubs a progressive model to develop local players for their Senior Team, at a lessened cost of traditional pre-professional academies.
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Doing so will also enable far more clubs and communities to participate, allowing for the
regional division format which limits travel demand to teams and families.
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Regional alignment announcements continue on Monday with the unveiling of the Florida division.
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