Incoming Major League Soccer Commissioner Larry Berg sees his role as continuing the trajectory of the league under his soon-to-be predecessor, Don Garber.
The 30-team league that Graber grew during his 27-year tenure now looks to Berg to capitalize on the success of the World Cup this past summer and guide the transition to a new international schedule next year.
“I think one of the reasons that I raised my hand is I feel like I have the enthusiasm and the passion to hopefully have other people, in some cases, see it through my eyes and understand where we’re going and where it can go and what what it can be," Berg told The Associated Press. ”I’m very proud of where we already are. I think we’ve come a very, very long way."
Berg, a co-owner of LAFC, will formally take over as commissioner at the start of next year. Garber, who has served as the league’s commissioner since 1999, will help guide the transition before moving into a new role as chairman.
Garber said the ideal candidate would unite the entire MLS ecosystem around a shared vision. And he believes the league will have that under Berg, who will become just the third commissioner in the history of the league.
“I think he’s convinced the ownership through a very comprehensive process that he has what it takes to do the two most important things, which is to create that vision, and then to get the owners to unite around it,” Garber said. “That requires great relationships. It requires the capability to put the plan together and do the work. ... He (Berg) is super smart. He doesn’t lead with ego. He leads with understanding perspectives, and I think that’s a super important part of being the commissioner.”
The 60-year-old Berg, who has served as co-chair of the MLS sporting and competition committee, will divest his ownership interest in LAFC. He was formally introduced as the incoming commissioner on Tuesday at the league's New York headquarters, a day after he received the required two-thirds of the votes from the owners.
“First of all, he loves soccer, and I think next to his family, soccer is the most important thing in his life. Second of all, he knows the league really well. We have 30 great owners, and all of them are very involved in the league. But Larry is, I think it’s safe to say, has been over the last five years the most involved owner,” Columbus Crew owner Jimmy Haslam said. “He understands what we do well, where we have opportunity. I think he has a great relationship with all the owners. Going through this process certainly enhanced that.”
Berg previously held ownership stakes in Italian club AS Roma, as well as English league team Swansea. Under Berg’s ownership, LAFC won the MLS Cup in 2022, and the Supporters’ Shield in 2019.
Under Garber's watch, the league has expanded from 12 to 30 teams. He introduced the league’s marketing arm, Soccer United Marketing, encouraged the construction of soccer-specific stadiums and spurred the growth of an academy system to develop players in the United States.
Five clubs, Inter Miami, the home of Lionel Messi, LAFC, LA Galaxy, Atlanta United and NYCFC are valued at more than $1 billion, according to Forbes.
At the start, Berg will oversee the league's shift to a new calendar, with the season running from on a summer to spring schedule to more align with its international counterparts. Currently the league plays a late winter to late fall schedule.
Following the conclusion of the current season, MLS will play a shortened 14-game “sprint season” in early 2027 before the league switches to its new schedule, kicking off in July with the league championship to be played in May 2028.
Berg will also be charged with negotiating a new media rights deal. The current contract with Apple TV ends in 2029. The league is also looking at changes to roster rules.
“This has been a passion my whole life. This sport and some of the great joys of my life have been involved in the LAFC and involved with the sporting competition committee," Berg said. ”I have a lot of ideas. I feel like we’re at a point where a tremendous amount of success has been achieved with the games and the live gameday entertainment experience, etc. But as the World Cup showed, you can be incredibly happy and very successful, but somehow there’s always more. You want to get to that next step."
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Los Angeles FC lead owner Larry Berg gestures during an interviewed at the Major League Soccer 25th Season kickoff event in New York, Feb. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Russia and Ukraine traded accusations Tuesday that each side’s attacks caused civilian deaths, with officials in the Moscow region saying five people were killed there while authorities in Ukraine said a similar number, including two children, died at various sites across the country.
Russia has relentlessly pounded civilian areas of Ukraine, even though Moscow insists its forces target only military facilities.
Since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion over four years ago, Ukraine has developed long-range drones that can strike deep inside Russia. In the past year, its forces have battered oil facilities, major storage depots and other key infrastructure.
More than 16,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the war began, the United Nations said last month in its most recent casualty report, with the vast majority occurring in areas under the Ukrainian government’s control. Casualties have risen steadily each year.
The U.N. children’s agency on Tuesday urged both countries to uphold international humanitarian law requiring the protection of children, citing recent deaths in Russia's Belgorod and Krasnodar regions, as well as in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions.
“Attacks that kill and injure children must stop,” UNICEF said in a statement.
Meanwhile, escalating attacks on shipping in the Black Sea by both sides has reawakened fears that global food security could be put at risk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a video on social media that he said showed a Russian drone hunting a man selling vegetables from a street stall in the southern city of Kherson.
The video shows the man trying to flee the drone as it circles his vehicle, follows him and ultimately strikes the car where he was trying to hide. He suffered wounds to his back, legs and arms, according to an interview he gave to the Kherson regional military administration.
Russia's Defense Ministry did not immediately reply to an Associated Press request for comment.
Drone attacks on civilians have surged since the war began, with 967 people killed, including 10 children, and nearly 7,000 people injured, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said Tuesday.
Russian drone operators track and strike civilians going about daily activities, according to previous AP reporting. A U.N. commission concluded in October 2025 that such attacks amounted to crimes against humanity.
“The world must see this,” Zelenskyy said. “It must see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad and that its soldiers take pleasure in killing and abusing civilians.”
The death toll from a drone strike Monday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Arkhipo-Osipovka rose to seven, including four children, regional authorities said.
On Tuesday, Krasnodar regional authorities updated the number of wounded to 58, with 21 hospitalized.
Video circulating online showed a drone slamming into a crowded beach with what sounded like gunfire in the background. Ukraine has not commented on the strike.
A Ukrainian drone attack Tuesday in the region around Moscow killed five people and wounded 10 others, said Gov. Andrei Vorobyov. Most of the damage occurred in the Chekhov municipal district, where several fires erupted at the Novoselki industrial zone, he said.
In the latest in a series of attacks on Russia’s biggest online retailer Wildberries, the company said its warehouse in the Leningrad region, adjacent to St. Petersburg, was on fire.
In the village of Emmaus, located between Moscow and St. Petersburg, drone debris partially damaged a wall of a Wildberries warehouse, regional Gov. Vitaly Korolyov said.
In the past 18 days, Ukrainian drones have targeted 15 Wildberries warehouses, 13 of which caught fire, said Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. Ukrainian officials say the company provides goods that can be used by the military. Kyiv is also keen to unsettle the Russian public with high-profile attacks.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces on Monday night struck “Ukrainian ports, vessels and port infrastructure” used by Kyiv’s army.
In the port of Chornomorsk, in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, Russia said it hit an automobile components plant and a port terminal, where the military vehicles were being repaired and ammunition and fuel were being stored.
In the southern port of Mykolaiv, a bulk carrier with military cargo was damaged, while in Pivdennyi, another Ukrainian port, a vessel unloading military cargo was hit, according to the Russian statement.
The ministry also said two bulk carriers hauling weapons and military equipment were damaged at sea, south of Odesa.
Turkey on Tuesday repeated its appeal for both countries to ensure safe passage in the Black Sea after two Turkish-owned ships were attacked by drones after leaving the Russian port of Novorossiysk.
A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement expressed concerns that the war is increasingly spreading across the Black Sea, threatening merchant shipping, and warned such incidents could have broader consequences, including for the global food supply, as important shipments of grain, fertilizer and other key products move through those waters.
Russian attacks on Mykolaiv, including its port, killed an 89-year-old woman and wounded seven other people aged between 2 and 83, Ukrainian regional officials said.
The Russian strike on civilian infrastructure in southern Odesa region destroyed a private home and wounded two people, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional military administration.
In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, six Russian glide bombs killed two girls aged 5 and 10 and an elderly woman, said Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy regional military administration.
Russian forces also struck Kharkiv and 18 towns and villages across the northern region in the previous 24 hours, killing one person and injuring seven, including an 8-year-old, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.
Strikes in Balakliia, also in the Kharkiv region, damaged an apartment building, a library, three stores and more than 10 houses, wounding two women, local authorities said.
Two glide bombs struck Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, injuring 24 people, local officials said. Kramatorsk sits at the northern end of Ukraine’s Fortress Belt, where Western analysts say Russia is making a renewed effort to break through after four years of attrition.
Vadym Filashkin, head of the regional military administration, urged people still living near the front to evacuate, saying authorities would help with transportation, housing and other support.
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Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, private houses destroyed following a night Russian missile attack are seen in Odesa region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a firefighter puts out a fire following a Russian missile attack in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
