Will Concacaf totally abandon promotion/relegation?

As Mexico reconsiders the Ascenso, it's possible our region will be the first to dispense teams going up or down

Let’s get Concacafed like we want to spread the news.

Alebrijes de Oaxaca’s three shirt options for this season.

I was sitting in Rostov-on-Don before Mexico’s World Cup match against South Korea when I met top Asian soccer writer Scott McIntyre, an Australian based in Japan. I’d been a fan of Scott’s work for a long time, and it was cool to watch the game and chat with someone who knew the Korean team as well as I know the Mexican one.

I remembered the game well, but the commentator on the highlights keeps talking about how hot it is, which I don’t really recall.

What I do remember is one speed bump in my chat with Scott, when we were discussing our native countries and not the teams we often cover. For Scott, Australia and the United States will never reach their potential as national teams until their professional leagues institute a promotion and relegation system.

To me, I see so few players on top national teams or at the absolute pinnacle of the sport crediting professional growth with fighting against promotion and relegation. The United States needs more players worrying about winning the Champions League than players worried about staying in the first division.

That said, I do like promotion and relegation. Sure, there’s something ‘just’ about it. The worst teams lose their category. The best ones from the league below replace them. Beyond that, it’s just fun. A relegation scrap makes for great viewing. Seeing celebrations after a team goes up is always thrilling (pitch invasion, please). It definitely feels more important watching Werder Bremen vs. Fortuna than FC Cincinnati vs. Orlando City at the end of the season or even, like, Hornets vs. Hawks.

Those in charge rarely take what I like into account, however, and promotion and relegation is not at all robust in Concacaf.

MLS, of course, is a totally closed system while even in the best of times Mexico sends one team down every year and that team is the one with the worst average record over the last six seasons.

Leagues like Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras have perhaps the most straight-forward pro/rel situation but even then it’s generally one team down, one team up.

There are success stories, like San Carlos in Costa Rica coming up from the second division, winning a title and playing in the Concacaf Champions League.

Those stories are few and far between. More often than not, a team in Concacaf goes down and ceases to exist. It doesn’t matter if a team has political influence like Jaguares in Mexico or a rich history like Luis Ángel Firpo in El Salvador, which went down and then ceased to exist at the ripe old age of 96. (There’s an effort to pay Firpo’s debts and get the club operating once again, but as of now it looks like the sixth relegation will be the last).

So it’s no surprise that more and more club owners are working to find ways to eliminate the threat of relegation and keep making good money in the first division.

It’s why it’s far more likely that Liga MX do away with relegation than MLS add a pro/rel system (especially after the CAS ruling allowing MLS to continue operating as it is currently).

Discussions currently are on hold, but before the coronavirus pandemic, Liga MX owners were discussing a plan that would’ve allowed three more teams to come into the top divison. Then promotion and relegation would go on hold until the 2026 World Cup on North American soil when it would be re-evaulated. That provision seems to be in place to keep higher-ups happy, but do you really believe it? If you owned a club in the most-watched North American league and could continue reaping the benefits of TV revenue, gate money and sponsorship, would you open the door on losing all that cash?

Promotion already is a bit of a joke in Mexico, anyway. The last several years, teams that were supposed to be relegated have been allowed to buy their way back into their first division by simply paying a fee. Clubs like Alebrejies de Oaxaca (whose folk-art inspired jerseys are pictured above) have been dismissed out of hand as clubs which could be promoted.

Teams that really wanted to be in the first division, like FC Juarez, just bought licenses off other teams and were in the top division.

With the potential of promotion no longer serving as a motivation, owners become much less likely to be concerned about things like the greater football ecosystem. Liga MX owners’ plan involves the second division becoming a reserve league.

This would be good for development and terrible for the sport in Mexico. I’ve traveled all around Mexico, and there are absolutely enough mid-sized cities that don’t currently have a first-division team to create a vibrant pyramid.

While it would be a shame to see professional soccer in Mexico essentially reduced to big cities central Mexico plus a few northern outposts, the owners are right that something needs to be done about the second division. Clubs are dropping like flies, with the Ascenso going from 18 teams in 2017 to a dozen now and many of those teams struggling financially as well.

A robust second-division has proven critical to the development of players, especially those between 18-23 where Mexico struggles to mold its talented young prospects into full-time stars. Then look at a team like England in the past World Cup and how many of its players spent time on loan in the second division or even at a lower level in their youth, getting minutes, learning how to play against men.

A developmental league might not accomplish that, but it could mean the end of owners’ nightmare - being sent down and perhaps ceasing to exist.

While to the north MLS becomes a more and more global league, Mexico continues to be relatively nationalistic - at least when it comes to club ownership and operation. That could change as well, though it’s another argument owners might make in favor of dropping pro/rel. One of the things that makes MLS so intriguing is that it seems unlikely a club will see the bottom drop out in its valuation and earning potential like it could if it’s relegated in another league.

If Mexico were to completely eliminate pro/rel, what would stop club owners in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras or the Caribbean from doing the same? ‘The biggest league in the region did it - the model for financial and sporting success in Concacaf. Why not us?’ the thinking would have to go.

It won’t happen any time soon, but it’s entirely possible Concacaf becomes something of a global leader in getting rid of a beloved facet of the beautiful game.

What do you think? Drop me a line here or on Twitter with how you see the future of pro/rel going in Concacaf.

Next week

We’ll return to the situation in Nicaragua with a first-person perspective on the situation plus dive into the Concacaf Best XI.

Have a great weekend. Be safe. And drop this newsletter in all your group chats so your friends and family subscribe.