Major League Soccer announced Friday player and roster rules for all franchises in the 2011 season and news that, to have a balanced league with nine teams in each conference, the two-time Western Conference and MLS Cup champion Houston Dynamo will now move to the Eastern Conference and the league's two expansion teams -- the Portland Timbers and the Vancouver Whitecaps -- will take their places in the Western Conference.
The complete list of player and roster rules are available at www.mlssoccer.com, but here are some of the highlights:
- Each team will have a 30-man roster, with the salaries of the first 20 spots on the roster counting against each team's $2.675 million salary cap. The maximum budget charge to any player on a roster, even Designated Players, is now $365,000.
- Teams can now sign an unlimited number of home grown players to their rosters.
- 144 spots will be available on leaguewide rosters for international players.
- Rosters will be frozen on September 15, 2011.
- There will be two international transfer windows available for players to jump to foreign teams -- January 21 to April 15 and July 15 to August 14.
As for the Dynamo, the reason they were the franchise selected to move into the Eastern Conference was that they were the furthest eastern franchise in the Western Conference, located 100 miles east of FC Dallas.
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