St. Louis, which has been rebuffed in its efforts to get a team in Major League Soccer, has obtained a team in a new Division II league.

Jeff Cooper has joined the owners of six teams who have broken away from the established United Soccer Leagues to form their own, as yet unnamed, league that will begin play in April. The league still needs to receive sanctioning from the U.S. Soccer Federation as a Division II league. (The MLS is Division I.)

The other teams in the new league are Atlanta, Carolina, Miami, Minnesota, Montreal and Vancouver. While previously existing clubs like Montreal, which defeated Vancouver for the USL championship last season, will have little trouble making the transition with full rosters already in place, Cooper is faced with getting his team up and running in a few months.

"We have a history of trying not to make anything easy," said Cooper, who already owns the St. Louis Athletica in Women's Professional Soccer. "The good thing is we're not starting from scratch, we have an entire back office already up and running, so we just have to worry about the on-field product."

Cooper said in the next 30 to 45 days, the team plans to hire an executive director who will oversee all aspects of the club, then a director of soccer operations and after that, a coach. The team will play its matches at the A-B Center in Fenton.

The owners who left the USL say they were frustrated by their lack of say in the operations of the league, which was run by a third party. The new league will be controlled by the league owners and will have no salary cap.

Cooper, who attempted to buy the USL this summer, said he is still interested in getting an MLS franchise, but right now "it doesn't make sense economically." Two teams about to join MLS, Portland and Vancouver, did so after playing in the USL.