By Ridge Mahoney

Starting next season, MLS teams will be required to field at least two youth teams, the first step in a program of club-driven player development.

Ultimately, each league team will field six youth teams ranging in age from U-14 to U-25. Each youth team will include up to 18 players and teams will have the opportunity to sign players who have come through their development system rather than risk losing them to other MLS teams in the annual SuperDraft.

Giving teams sufficient incentive to find and hone talent is the primary purpose of this program. It also mimics models used by clubs throughout the world to cement ties to their local communities.

Teams must hire at least one coach for each team and meet league benchmarks for training days and match days. The program begins next year with the fielding of U-15 and U-18 teams. Since it is designed to train players for MLS competition, for which women are not eligible, it is for males only.

Other details, such as how the league will circumvent NCAA eligibility rules that sharply restrict contact with professional players and entities, have not been specified by MLS. How much resistance will be put up by the powerful independent youth clubs around the country is also unknown.

''We're in a very charged political environment,'' says deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis, who has overseen much of the project's development. ''One of the messages we need to be careful about managing is we're not saying the current system is failing players. To the contrary, we really believe some of the youth development programs the club teams have and even the college system has are producing very good players.

''We do believe there's a place for us in youth development and we can add value to the overall development of youth players in the United States. The overall goal for us has nothing to do with politics or turf. It has to do with one thing and one thing only and that's developing the best possible players we can for the United States and Major League Soccer.''

Two years after being registered as a Home Grown Player with an MLS club, such a player can be signed to a standard league contract by that team. Otherwise, players are registered as would any other amateur player with U.S. Soccer and are not bound to the club by any contractual restriction.

''Players still have the option to go wherever in the world they want to sign,'' said Gazidis. ''Our belief is that most of the young ones will want to sign with the club and the league that developed them.''

Details regarding MLS youth teams playing against each other as well as in local leagues will be worked out in the coming months. The league Board of Governors will designate a ''home territory'' for each MLS team.

Gazidis said the program is designed to supplement, not supersede, its Generation adidas program by which high school- and college-age players sign with MLS. It will also permit those players to retain eligibility while training and playing in a professional environment.

''While I think Generation adidas is a successful program,'' said Gazidis, ''it really represents the tip of an iceberg and we have not, as a professional league, involved ourselves as much as we're ultimately going to need to in the rest of that iceberg. These are all incremental steps to get us more deeply involved so there's more competition.''