The NWSL announced on Thursday that it will now allow intraleague loans for all teams, and that Boston and Denver franchises will have access to significantly more money to build their initial rosters as the first expansion teams to join the league since the new collective bargaining agreement eliminated drafts.
“I think it’s fair to say that we are trying more and more to align with our global counterparts,” Stephanie Lee, the NWSL’s VP of player affairs, told ESPN. “And I think in of itself, aligning with our global counterparts is part of the larger conversation of, ‘How do we be the best league in the world?'”
Boston Legacy FC and the yet-unnamed Denver expansion teams will bring the NWSL to 16 teams when they begin play next year.
The expansion teams will have access to up to $1,065,000 in allocation money beginning on July 1.
The league will fund half of that automatically, and the rest will be funded out of pocket by each team at their discretion.
It’s a significant amount for two reasons: Allocation money is…
