Girls Academy League adds 7th conference for inaugural season

The newly-created Girls Academy League announced the addition of a seventh conference in the Northwest region ahead of the 2020-2021 season.

After revealing a preliminary conference alignment map with six conferences – Northeast, Southwest, Mid-America, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Frontier – the Girls Academy League is expanding its reach to include a Northwest Conference which will serve Northern California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and most of Nevada.

Over 50 clubs – including many former Girls DA clubs – have already been unveiled as members of the first six conferences. Member clubs for the Northwest Conference will revealed on the Girls Academy League website and social media.

Following the closure of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, former DA member clubs have been piling into the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) and the new Academy League. To see what all former Girls DA clubs are doing, follow SoccerWire’s Girls Development Academy Club Realignment Tracker.

The Girls Academy League is a new competition platform launched by members of the Development Player League (DPL). The DPL has stated that it will continue to provide its clubs with flexibility in the following two key areas:

• Permission for all players in the Girls Academy League to participate in high school soccer.
• Revising the substitution rules to encourage clubs to better utilize their player pools, especially when showcasing their players to college coaches.