Official: MLS expansion draft scheduled for LAFC

It’s official: There will be a MLS expansion draft for Los Angeles Football Club.

The league announced on Tuesday that the 2017 expansion draft will take place on Tuesday, Dec. 12 at 11 am PT.

The rules for this year’s draft will be the same as last year’s draft, which was for Atlanta United and Minnesota United. Just like last year, LAFC will have the opportunity to select five players from around the league, with no more than one player eligible to be selected from a given team.

Existing MLS teams will be required to submit lists of protected players who are not allowed to be picked by LAFC. Teams can protect 11 players, and there are two classes of players who are automatically exempt and do not have to be included on the list of 11: Generation adidas players, and Homegrown players who are considered “off-budget.”

Teams’ lists are due on Dec. 10, so while LAFC will have surely done their homework ahead of time, they will have a short amount of time to come up with their list. To their advantage this time around, they don’t have to strategize in case another team in the draft takes their selections, since they are the only team involved this time around.

Considering this draft will likely take about three minutes and past editions have not been streamed, I highly doubt there will be any kind of “real time” coverage, just the results when they drop. But again, with only one team doing this and them effectively handing over a list of picks, it’s not like there’s much to see, really. And then we’ll see who gets picked, and the fun of building LAFC’s inaugural roster really begins!

We’ll have plenty of expansion draft coverage in the weeks to come. In the meantime, what do you think? Leave a comment below!