Beginning today, you can now access the World Soccer Talk Forums, a new feature to the website where you can start and participate in conversations with fellow soccer fans around the world.

The first question that probably comes to your mind is why do we need forums when we have the comments section under each article? There are two answers to that question. First, there are often times when you, the reader, will come to the site with a topic or breaking news story that you want to share or discuss, but there’s no appropriate article to post your comment. Second, one of the main reasons why World Soccer Talk has grown in popularity since our launch in 2005 has been you, the reader. There are often new topics or conversations you want to start up, or things you’re curious about, but up there hasn’t been a central place to post those. Until now.

The World Soccer Talk Forums are free to participate and the registration only takes a minute.

Currently, we have seven categories in the Forums for you to read and participate in:

• Introduce yourself,
• General soccer talk,
• World Cup 2014,
• Trading post,
• Soccer TV & media,
• Off topic, and
• Site & Forums suggestions/questions/issues.

You can access the World Soccer Talk Forums via this link and, in the future, via the ‘Forums’ section on the main navigation bar.

A big thank you goes to World Soccer Talk reader Tony Butterworth for working with me to get the Forums live and for volunteering to be a chief moderator.

I look forward to reading and participating with you in the Forums section!