ECNL Girls Regional League – Southern Cal to launch in 2024-25 season

The ECNL announced the formation of a new ECNL Girls Regional League in California. The ECNL Regional League – Southern Cal will launch next season to clarify and improve the player development pathway for the nation’s top clubs in Southern California.

The ECNL Regional League – Southern Cal will create a competitive pyramid in the Southern California area for teams and clubs moving forward. The creation of this new league will provide a pathway from the ECNL Regional League – Southern Cal into the ECNL Regional League – Southwest, and ultimately into the ECNL Girls Southwest Conference. Teams from both the ECNL Regional League – Southern Cal and the ECNL Regional League – Southwest will meet in the postseason, along with teams from other ECNL Regional Leagues in the region, to compete annually for berths in the ECNL Regional League Finals every year.

This ECNL Regional League competition structure has existed in Texas for several years, and beyond providing great competition and access to ECNL RL National Events, it has also allowed multiple clubs to move through the pyramid.

(Players to Watch: ECNL Girls Phoenix Spring 2024 National Event)

FC Westlake girls and Arkansas Rising girls both earned promotions, (from the ECNL RL – USC and the ECNL RL – North Texas, respectively), into the ECNL RL – Texas one year ago based on their performances across multiple age groups and in postseason competition. (FC Westlake has also now earned promotion on the boys side from the ECNL RL – Texas into the ECNL Boys – Texas Conference for the 2024-25 season.)

“We believe that every Regional League needs to provide great regular competition, access to appropriate showcasing for high performing teams, and a strong post-season pathway to a championship, and the ECNL RL – Southern Cal will check all of those boxes,” said ECNL Girls Commissioner Ralph Richards. “This model has been proven in other areas already, and we are excited to continue unifying the competition pyramid in Southern Cal next year. The 2024-2025 season will only be step one in this process.”

This fall, the ECNL Regional League – Southern Cal will launch with the support of nine ECNL clubs and the commitment to add multiple additional new clubs in the fall of 2025 based on performance across other competition platforms. This staggered launch approach has been successful in other regions, providing careful growth with clear standards and expectations for all clubs, including the new digital coach education annual requirements for all coaches working across the ECNL and ECNL RL.