International Soccer League

The International Soccer League was a U.S.-based soccer league which was formed in 1960 and collapsed in 1965. The League, affiliated with the American Soccer League, featured guest teams primarily from Europe and some from South America, Canada and Mexico.

The creation of the League was announced in January 1960, when it was regarded as an attempt to create a Club World Cup, with authorization given by FIFA and ratified by Stanley Rous. Rous's blessing of the International Soccer League was the second of his 3 attempts, as a FIFA official, to support a "club world cup", preceded by his involvement in the 1951 Copa Rio and followed by his 1967-1970 proposal to expand the Intercontinental Cup into a FIFA-sponsored multicontinental Club World Cup. However, the concurrence of the UEFA/CONMEBOL-endorsed Intercontinental Cup, launched also in 1960, ended up overshadowing the International Soccer League and the relevance it might have had as a club world championship. As both the Intercontinental Cup and the International Soccer League were first played in 1960, by that year it was possibly unclear which one of the two competitions would have its "club world cup" prestige stick among football fans and mass media; as a consequence, the champion club of the 1960 International Soccer League, Brazilian Bangu, has announced it will request FIFA recognition to its title as a Club World Cup.