After a meeting of the MLS management committee Aug. 12-13, details of the MLS conference alignment, expansion draft and schedule for 1998 have been worked out, MLS Commissioner Doug Logan announced Aug. 14. Conference Alignment MLS will feature two six team conferences in 1998, with the expansion Miami Fusion joining the Eastern Conference and the unnamed Chicago franchise playing in the Western Conference. The league decided to remain consistent with the conference system used during the first two seasons of play, although it ultimately plans to have 16 teams with two four-team divisions in each conference. 1998 Expansion Draft The expansion draft will take place in early November of 1997 and will consist of 12 rounds. Each existing MLS team must make 10 players from the club’s roster available for the draft, of which nine must be domestic players. A team can lose a maximum of three layers in the draft, but each time a player is selected, the team that lost the player is allowed to withdraw one of the players originally made available for the draft. Each expansion team will be allowed to select a maximum of three goalkeepers in the expansion draft. 1998 Schedule The 1998 MLS regular-season schedule will again feature 32 games per team and will kick off with a single game on Sunday, March 15. The 29-week season will conclude on Sept. 27. During the first two weekends of the World Cup ’98 (which runs from June 10-July 12), the 12 MLS teams will play only one game. Thus, the league will have just three games on the weekend of June 13 and three more the following weekend. The six teams with home games are scheduled to have promotional tie-ins with the World Cup. As is the case currently, four teams from each conference will qualify for the 1998 playoffs. Dates for the playoffs and MLS Cup ’98 will be announced in the future.