By Nicholas Reimann, Mid-City Messenger

New Orleans’ premier soccer team is back.

After taking a year off from playing in the 2019 season with a stated focus on “exploring professional soccer,” the New Orleans Jesters will return to play in 2020, according to a news release from the National Premier Soccer League — the amateur league the Jesters play in.

The Jesters were coming off some of the most successful seasons in team history, including three straight seasons in the NPSL playoffs, when in February they announced the 2019 hiatus — leaving New Orleans without a team in a national league for the first time in 17 years.

Longtime head coach and general manager Kenny Farrell, who in January 2019 became the chairman of the NPSL’s board of directors, said in February the Jesters were looking to go professional, adding “we struggled with this decision, but we feel our fans and the next generation of local soccer families deserve better.”

New Orleans hasn’t had a professional soccer team since the New Orleans Storm folded in 1999. Since that time, investment in soccer has exploded in the U.S., with now over 80 professional teams spread across the country.

Many of the cities that once hosted Jesters competition in NPSL — including Birmingham, Nashville and Chattanooga — have gone on to get professional teams, and in June, the newly formed National Independent Soccer Association announced a professional team would be put in Baton Rouge.

Despite its return to the amateur ranks, Farrell said in an interview that the Jesters just “needed to go back on the field this year,” even though the goal remains for the team to turn professional.

“I think the city is ready for it, but we won’t dream and go in and fail,” he said.

The league they’ll continue to play in is generally seen as the country’s top non-professional league. Above it in the U.S. Soccer pyramid — the league hierarchy — are Major League Soccer at the top, followed by three other fully professional leagues.

The nearly 100-team NPSL did experiment in 2019 with a small national competition called the “NPSL Members Cup,” though, which resembled a professional league. The competition involved six of its highest-profile teams from across the country, with the goal of eventually turning into a national, professional league, according to a 2018 report from SBI Soccer.

As for the 2020 campaign, the Jesters will take part in a new NPSL conference consisting of teams based in the Gulf region.

Along with the Jesters, teams from Mobile, Alabama; Gulfport, Mississippi; Pensacola, Florida; Tallahassee, Florida; and Jacksonville, Florida will make up the conference. With the exception of Jacksonville and the Jesters, all the other teams will be new additions to NPSL.

In the announcement of the new Gulf Coast-based conference, Farrell — in his role as NPSL chairman — praised the move, hoping it will spur growth of the sport in the region.

“We have been looking to develop the I-10 Corridor to bridge the gap between Louisiana and the panhandle of Florida. This is a great accomplishment for the league,” Farrell said in a statement.

“All four of our new teams are tremendous additions that will help us grow the beautiful game across the country. This will certainly be seen as a great day for soccer fans and supporters along the Gulf Coast.”

That fits with what the identity of NPSL should be, Farrell said in an interview, saying a league at its level needs to focus on the regional rivalries.

The Irish-born Farrell said the league’s still exploring how it might pursue a professional venture, saying it must first focus on increasing the level of competition and expanding the season’s time-frame to reflect the longer seasons of the higher leagues.

Farrell urged discretion when it came for both the league and club he heads going professional, noting American soccer’s history of having professional leagues spring up that end up dissolving because of a lack of stability.

“When we attach ourselves to something, we don’t want to attach ourselves to something that fails,” he said.

The way competition has worked in NPSL is that teams will usually play a regular season in the spring where they face each of their conference opponents twice — once at home and once away. The top teams then go on to the conference playoffs in early summer, with the conference champion advancing to take on teams around the U.S. as they move closer to the national championship.

The Jesters — who play home games at Pan American Stadium in City Park — have never advanced beyond the conference stages of the NPSL playoffs.

One of the goals of moving to the new conference is to bolster competition for the Jesters in the Gulf region, the club has said.

“The Jesters lack many regional opponents, which has hindered full fan participation and experience,” the club said in the February statement announcing the 2019 hiatus. “As NPSL Chairman, Farrell has prioritized developing more regional clubs that can meet the standards of the league.”

The Jesters haven’t taken the field since July 10, 2018, in a 3-2 conference playoff loss to Georgia Revolution FC at Pan American Stadium.

The club’s 2020 schedule has not yet been announced.

Reporter Nicholas Reimann can be reached at nreimann@theadvocate.com.