NEW YORK – Major League Soccer today announced the list of players available for selection in the 2018 MLS Expansion Draft, which takes place starting at 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Dec. 11. FC Cincinnati will have the opportunity to select up to five players as they prepare for their 2019 debut. A list of 255 players are available.

The 2018 MLS Expansion Draft will be conducted live from MLS Headquarters in New York, with FC Cincinnati President and GM Jeff Berding, head coach Alan Koch and technical director Luke Sassano on hand to make the club’s selections. Live coverage will be on MLSsoccer.com.

Current MLS clubs protected 11 players from their 2018 roster, with the five teams that had players selected by the Los Angeles Football Club in the 2017 MLS Expansion Draft exempt from this year’s draft (Columbus Crew SC [Jukka Raitala], San Jose Earthquakes [Marco Ureña], Seattle Sounders FC [Tyler Miller], Sporting Kansas City [Latif Blessing] and Toronto FC [Raheem Edwards]). Since 2014, each round of expansion has involved two incoming clubs selecting from the eligible player list. Therefore, for the competitive consistency of the MLS Expansion Draft process, LAFC and FC Cincinnati are considered a single round of expansion.

LAFC players will be eligible for selection this year by FC Cincinnati.

Generation adidas players (who did not graduate at the end of the 2018 season) and Homegrown Players on a club’s off-budget roster are automatically protected and do not count against a team’s 11 protected roster spots. Designated Players are not automatically protected. If a Designated Player has a no trade clause in his contract, then the club must protect him in the Expansion Draft.

Once one player has been selected from a team’s unprotected roster, that team may not lose any further players (all additional players from that team become ineligible for selection).

CLICK HERE for the full 2018 MLS Expansion Draft guidelines.