The draw for the new season in the Macedonian Second League was made today.

Right after the draw for the Macedonian top flight took place the one for the Second League. Ten teams will feature, but the draw had only 9. Mladost from the village of Carev Dvor, the team that was relegated from the First League, failed to meet the necessary requirements due to financial problems and was denied the possibility to participate. In the upcoming days FFM will decide which team will take their place, but most probably it will be one of the defeated teams in the play-off for filling the Second League. More precisly, it will be Novaci who failed to gain promotion after being eliminated on penalties. The other two play-of losers, Goblen Junior and Vardari, were twice defeated.

The season in the Second League will start on 13 August and will end on 20 May 2017. The top two teams will be promoted with the third-placed entering the promotion/relegation play-off against the eight-placed team of the First League. The bottom two teams will get relegated, but the league will be expanded to 20 teams from the season 2017/18 with two groups (East and West) each with 10 teams.

The Round 1 matches are the following:

Vardar Negotino vs. Akademija Pandev
Tikvesh vs. Skopje
Gorno Lisiche – unknown
Metalurg vs. Teteks
Horizont Turnovo vs. Vlazrimi 77

Tikvesh, who last season ended up 3rd in the Third League South, bought the place of Ljubanci and will participate in the Second League. As usual in cases like this, the team will have to officially bear the name of Ljubanci for the first six months before eventually changing it to Tikvesh. To avoid confusion, we will always refer to this club as Tikvesh.