The GHSA soccer championship is returning to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the following three years, following the announcement Thursday afternoon by Robin Hines, Government Director of the Georgia Affiliation of Excessive Faculties, and Wealthy McKay, President and CEO of the Atlanta Falcons.

“It is a three-year cope with the intention of lasting for much longer than three years,” McKay mentioned. “We have put ourselves in a great place. We’re comfortable to see them again within the constructing. We would be negligent if I did not say we needed to carry the championship video games right here. There has at all times been a scheduling problem with our necessities within the NFL. We needed to maintain our Thursdays and Saturdays open always.”

All of the planning is preliminary, however the present thought is for the championship video games to be performed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, every week and a half after the semi-finals. If the NFL decides to stretch a house sport for the Atlanta Falcons throughout this window, the schedule might slide sooner or later ahead to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

“We completely take pleasure in an amazing relationship and partnership with the Falcons. We have by no means stopped speaking about lastly coming again right here,” Hines mentioned. “It was right here. The time is correct. We’re grateful to them for having the ability to work with us to make that occur.”

McKay additionally mentioned that having championship video games on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium was vital to Arthur Clean on many fronts, together with the flag soccer finals held on the constructing up to now. The stadium at the moment hosts round 50 occasions a 12 months and is in excessive demand, however highschool sports activities are vital to Clean.

“It is vital that he calls and asks, ‘Why aren’t they there? He does every part for highschool sports activities. You possibly can see this particularly within the funds supplied for flag soccer. Always asking ‘When will we get it again?’ We had arguments for a number of years. We’re happy that GHSA is honoring their settlement with the State of Georgia and this has been the 12 months to complete issues (to maneuver the video games to Mercedes-Benz).”

McKay agrees that the pliability to change to midweek (or weekday if wanted from an NFL flex) makes this variation rather more possible from Heart Parc Stadium to Mercedes-Benz for highschool championships.

“We had severe discussions that began some time in the past,” Hines says. “We talked to our Board of Trustees, we talked to our academics. They’re enthusiastic about this risk.”

The schedule for the 2023 GHSA highschool soccer championships will start with a flag soccer competitors every day of the three-day occasion, adopted by a workforce soccer competitors instead of all relay championships in sooner or later.

Different matters mentioned on the press convention included the idea of replaying GHSA soccer matches. Hines mentioned the following step on this course of is to see if the pilot program proposal could be accepted on the Government Committee assembly in April. Then, the primary occasions on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in August might be the primary take a look at.