Every year, the CEFL is proud to announce new teams that will make the league stronger, more interesting and more relevant, and this upcoming off-season is no exception, with an exciting development on the horizon.

Initiated by the desire of the Istanbul Cavaliers to join the league, there is a growing idea to expand the league not only in the direction of previous years. That idea of course has its obvious obstacles; obstacles the league could overcome by forming a new conference, whose teams would compete in a separate competition of their own.

The proposed separate competition, tentatively called CEFL Wildcard Cup, would seed several teams that are located too far from the core CEFL teams, that would play for a chance to eventually participate in the CEFL playoffs. The eventual winner would play the 4th best CEFL team as an away team, thus getting a chance to enter the CEFL playoff bracket.

Being a growing competition focused on raising the quality of the competition itself, while preserving everything that was good in the original idea has been one of main interests of the league. Keeping the league compact and focusing on the current CEFL countries — not making the league to big to be sustainable — while a good thing, also discards teams that have something to offer that are located too far away, at this time. The proposed league expansion to countries located farther away then what the league was looking for until now, while modifying the current league format would allow just that

The Istanbul team is definitely among those teams that have plenty to offer, to the CEFL and to European american football in general. The whole Turkish league has flown under the radar mostly because of the relative distance they have to the European continent, and their lack of involvement in European competitions, but their development in recent years has been fast.

The Turkish League in general is in an advanced stage of development, maybe even more then some current CEFL teams’ countries. They have two separate competitions, one of which is on a university level. The Cavaliers were one of the strongest Turkish teams last year, advancing to the league final – and they definitely lead a group of teams that could compete in the CEFL.

More – about the type of competition, number of teams – will be known in the near future, after the CEFL offseason winter meeting. The meeting usually takes place in the period from mid-December to mid-January.