Expand SuperLiga? Elitism OK?

A little blurb of an item in the Kansas City Star mentions something that about the Mexican Primera/MLS SuperLiga slipped by me - though clearly not everyone - in recent announcements:

“Next year, we’ll expand to probably eight Mexico and eight U.S. teams,” [Doug Quinn, the president of Soccer United Marketing], told The Kansas City Star. “It’s not going to be an invitational; it’s going to be qualifying. You qualify in and you make it, just like Champions League.”


Geez...y'think? I'm a bit uneasy about this one seeing as it's already so dang easy to get into the post-season in Major League Soccer (MLS). Do we really need to do this in yet another competition. I mean, there are currently 13 teams in MLS and 18 in the Mexican Primera. Coming from the camp that thinks eight MLS teams in the post-season is too many (though, I have to confess, I also don't want to see it changed; let the league expand), this just seems to set the bar too low - especially with this guy boasting about the fact that teams will have to qualify.

Then again, someone out there, Kevin McGeehan from USSoccerplayers.com wondered if something larger and long-term might not be in the works:

"The SuperLiga is untenable without teams like the Galaxy involved, [which, if they failed to qualify would happen], which means that the Galaxy must always be involved in the tournament. Short of importing Italian referees, the only way to do this is to allow all MLS teams to enter the tournament every year. MLS can't do that without allowing all Mexican teams to enter as well, which might be the beginning of a joint American-Mexican league."


Now, that I'd be OK with. I already play that on FIFA 2004.

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