With the MLS Expansion Draft under a month away (date will be sometime after MLS Cup and before Thanksgiving), fcdallas.net will begin the first of a four-part series on the draft. The four parts will come out each week over the following four weeks leading up to the Expansion Draft. This first part will focus on the MLS Expansion Draft rules for each existing MLS team, the second part will center around how a team builds an expansion team, the third part will concentrate on how a team determines the criteria for protecting or not protecting players and the fourth and final part will be a list of who FC Dallas did protect and who they left exposed.
The MLS will conduct an Expansion Draft prior to the regularly scheduled postseason Waiver Draft, which will likely be in late November. This expansion draft will expose players unprotected on the 10 current existing MLS teams for the two new teams entering play in 2005. Those two teams are Real Salt Lake and CD Chivas USA, who will play in Los Angeles.
The following is a list of the Expansion Draft rules and what each team must abide by entering the draft.
With the rules set for the MLS Expansion Draft, the two expansion teams will prepare for their big day. After the league initially announced their franchise's inception on Aug. 2, CD Chivas USA will now have players to market around and a physical team to talk about prior to Thanksgiving. As for Real Salt Lake, who were spoken into existence on July 14, they will have waited over 130 days for this date to arrive. It's a monumental day for both franchises and an exciting time for the league.
Please join us next week as we will post "Expansion Draft - Part 2" which will focus on how one stockpiles an MLS expansion team.
