Amid changes announced in a letter from US Soccer CEO Will Wilson, nine youth national team programs on both the men's women's side will pause programming until 2021, the federation confirms.
As first reported by Yahoo' Sports Doug McIntyre, the affected programs are the Under-15, U-16, U-18 and U-19 teams on both the men's and women's sides, as well as the women's U-23 team. The U-17 and U-20 men's and women's national teams, as well as the men's U-23 national team are not affected by the pause, although all US national teams have had their upcoming games postponed or cancelled.
Wilson's letter included the following statement on youth national team programming:
Since the pandemic hit, we have been scaling back our Youth National Team programming and will continue to do so for the balance of 2020, with the possible exception of those teams involved in actual competitions. Along with Concacaf and FIFA, we will continue to monitor the possible staging of those competitions relative to the changing global COVID-19 landscape.
The men's U-23 side were set to take part in Olympic qualifying in March, but that was postponed due to the pandemic. No new date has been set. The women's U-17 World Cup was set to take place in November but that has been postponed as well.
U.S. Soccer's announcement on the youth national teams follows the announcement on Wednesday that the federation would be ending the Development Academy program.
