CBC-Sports

Major League Soccer's winter of discontent

December 6, 2009 07:17 PM | Posted by   Nigel Reed  

It all ended in a glorious upset. It could yet all end in tears.

2009 was very nearly the year in which Major League Soccer's shining star walked away with the glittering prize. It was also the year in which Team USA confounded its critics with a defiant performance at the Confederations Cup.

David Beckham will, if he has his way, return to MLS in July 2010 after a winter in Milan and a month in South Africa. But what kind of League will he rejoin with the clock ticking down to the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement?

The CBA, co-signed by the League and the then fledgling MLS Players' Union, came into effect in December 2004 when the MLS landscape looked very different. There were no Designated Players but, according to the union, there were plenty who lacked even basic health insurance.

The MLSPU achieved a number of concessions including an increase in minimum wage and a retirement plan for its members but five years on the union is ready to get tough and bare its teeth to settle a series of running sores.

It would be easy to imagine a belligerent union demanding a hefty pay rise for its members who, by comparison with their European counterparts, are very distant and very poor relations. But money, it seems, is not the prime factor at the negotiating table.

What the players really want is security and choice. Security, insists the union, can only be attained through guaranteed contracts – a privilege enjoyed by very few MLS players. Choice must involve some sort of free agency – a player's right in Europe since the Bosman ruling of 1995.

Not so on this side of the Atlantic. Traded players, whose contract is with the League not the club they represent, have no say in the matter. I still recall the shock expressed by Alecko Eskandarian in 2007 when, just days after scoring his first (and last) goal for Toronto FC, he was shipped out to Salt Lake after only 6 months with the expansion franchise.

The single entity nature of Major League Soccer suggests the practice is unlikely to end any time soon. But players are human beings too. As such it doesn't seem unreasonable to allow the lifeblood of the League to have an opinion on where his individual future lies.

MLS commissioner Don Garber is ready to resist any players' revolt. He's made it crystal clear he's not willing to compromise over key issues to avoid a strike and has branded the union "simply wrong" in its assertion the League isn’t playing by FIFA's rules.

For its own part, soccer’s world governing body has distanced itself from the dispute. FIFA has washed its hands of the brewing quarrel on the grounds it is a domestic issue despite calls from FIFPro, the international players' union, to intervene.

By global standards, MLS and its players union is a unique case. The League holds all the aces and its players, with the exception of those talented few good enough to attract transfers abroad or those hired as marquee performers, have been left to lump it under a salary cap, governed by executives who will not risk fiscal irresponsibility.

The MLS business model no doubt keeps the bank manager happy but in soccer, as in most professional sports, you get what you pay for. The game day ‘experience’ for many fans may be acceptable, but unless or until the League loosens the purse strings the product will struggle to improve.

We have to accept MLS remains a young organization still trying to establish itself as a credible summer alternative to baseball in many markets across North America. The League wishes it had franchises like Toronto and Seattle spread across the map but it simply isn’t the case.

Neither side can afford to a work stoppage in the New Year. The League, and its investors, needs to put on a show – especially in a World Cup year when soccer coverage will be further up the sporting agenda of media organizations and casual fans alike.

The Players’ Union can only push so far in pursuit of its goals. The threat of strike action, whatever the legitimacy of the grievances, rarely plays well with the public at large. The union could explain its position until it is blue in the face, but too many lukewarm observers would dismiss it as a cash grab.

Both parties have known this day (the CBA actually expires on January 31st) was coming and preliminary talks began some months ago. Until now it’s been a phony war but, with time beginning to run short, the guns may not stay silent for much longer.

" Previous Post | Main
  •