In a move sure to send shock waves through the Southern California club soccer community, the leading soccer clubs in the area have announced the formation of the Southern California Developmental Soccer League.

The new league is being founded by 22 clubs and will certainly be at cross-purposes with the long-established Coast Soccer League, which has been the major gaming entity in Southern California for more than 10 years. The founding clubs of the new SCDSL include:

Arsenal FC, Beach FC, Chivas USA, Corona Eagles, Cosmos Academy, Irvine Strikers, LA Galaxy, Laguna Hills Eclipse, Legends FC, Nomads, Orange County Revolution, Pateadores, Palos Verdes SC Exiles, Real So Cal, Slammers, So Cal Blues, So Cal Infinity, South Bay Force, South Coast Bayern, San Diego Surf, United FC, West Coast FC.

Real So Cal Director Scott Murray, who along with Irvine Strikers Director Don Ebert and Cosmos Academy Director Teddy Chronopoulos was listed as a contact point for the new league, said the group felt the new league would be the best thing for the clubs involved, citing unhappiness with scheduling and other conflicts with CSL.

"As an idea it started years ago, but we really started talking just about five weeks ago,” he said. “We felt we weren’t getting help coordinating schedules with ECNL and the Academy. I think ultimately we felt like we had no other course.”

Murray said with the expansion of ECNL next year to a 30+ match schedule including a lot of local, divisional play, those girls teams won’t be fully competing in the league. Boys’ teams in the Academy however should be able to continue competing in both.

While the inaugural season is likely to feature two divisions for most age groups, Murray also stressed that the final format of the opening league campaign this fall has not been determined, as a number of other clubs may still be entering.

“We want to walk before we run,” he said. “We’ll start here and then open it up with controlled growth.”

The league will feature fall play in age groups U9 to U19. Murray said it will have use of a number of facilities around Southern California.

Discussion about a new league took place six years ago, but never really got off the ground. Murray said interest in doing this hasn’t waned in the interim, but that this effort is much farther along and more organized than that one.

“I’ve been happy with the ability of people in our highly-competitive area to put egos aside,” he said. “It’s all gone quite fluidly and really moved along in a short amount of time.”