Although the American Soccer League in their recent meeting in Providence decided not to enter the competition for the National Challenge Cup this year, three of them -- the New York Giants, Bethlehem Steel, and Newark -- have declared themselves in.

All three are on the exempt list and will not play until the open competition of the Eastern division begins on February 2, after the other teams have played in the preliminary and five additional rounds.

Ninety-nine soccer clubs have entered the annual competition of the United States Football Association, the preliminary round of which has been scheduled for Oct. 6 and 7, both in the East and the West. The entries are about evenly divided between the two big divisions, there being fifty in the nine districts of the East and forty nine in the six districts of the West. Of the eastern teams, thirty-two have been paired together by the draw for the preliminary round, nine have byes and nine are exempted. In the western division, twenty-two will start in the preliminary, fourteen have byes and thirteen are exempt.

The Western division, on the other hand, will start its open competition on December 15 and 16 and then, following an interval to allow for the hard winter weather will continue in February. The following table shows the total number of clubs entered, together with the byes in the preliminary round and the exemptions:

Eastern Division
Districts	Playing	Byes	Exempted
Southern New England	2	0	0
Northern Massachusetts	2	1	0
Southern New York	6	1	4
New Jersey	8	4	3
Eastern Pennsylvania	2	1	1
Maryland	2	0	0
Washington	2	0	0
Connecticut	4	0	0
Northwestern New York	4	2	1
Totals	32	9	9
Western Division
Districts	Playing	Byes	Exempted
Illinois	6	1	5
Michigan	10	3	3
Western Pennsylvania	2	0	0
Ohio	2	7	1
Wisconsin	2	3	0
Missouri	0	0	4
Totals	22	14	13