The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CSA), the Swiss-based tribunal seen as the last stop adjudicating international sporting disputes, recently handed down a long awaited ruling in a case which threatened to upend the structure of soccer in the United States.



In 2017, The Miami FC, a second-division side currently in the United Soccer League (USL), and Kingston Stockade FC a semi-professional club playing in the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) petitioned CAS to essentially force FIFA to implement promotion and relegation in the United States.



The story begins in 2007. A controversy arose when a Spanish second-division team was sold, then the new owners decided to move the team 250 miles away and change its name from Ciudad de Murcia to Granada 74. The twist was that the team wanted to keep its second division status. The Spanish FA attempted to stop this, but lost after the dispute was heard by CAS. To prevent such incidents in the future, FIFA instituted...