When American soccer players discover they have the athletic prowess to play overseas, they go, and we encourage their choice. But when American soccer fans choose to ignore MLS, its considered to be detrimental to the success of American soccer.
As has been stated before in the New York Times, the biggest hurdle MLS has right now is that better quality soccer is incredibly accessible to existing American soccer fans, making MLS even less desirable. Soccer certainly has an uphill battle to fight here in the States, and while lack of a strong fan base may be part of the problem, MLS really wasn’t helping their plight by creating a league that is incredibly anti-competitive.
To begin, Major League Soccer legally owns every single MLS team. The teams are not members of the league; rather, they are products that are still largely controlled by the league. While each team has investors and co-owners, it is the league that makes the biggest and final choices.
Structurally, Major League Soccer is unique in that it is a limited liability company (LLC), retaining significant centralized control over league and team operations, including the intellectual property rights of the teams (logos, etc.), tickets, equipment, and negotiates all stadium leases. The league assumes all related liabilities, pays the salaries of the referees and other league personnel, and controls player employment at a premium.
MLS’ choice to organize itself as a LLC is also different from most soccer leagues, like the Premier League, which is organized as a corporation. Jason Kilborn, professor of law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois, states that MLS’s choice in the LLC form allows for more flexibility with their business decisions. “My bottom line is that the business structure of this organization has little to do with what’s it’s trying to accomplish. One could have this odd reverse ownership structure with a corporation, too, though the LLC form makes governance a bit more flexible (and less expensive).”
MLS also recruits the players, negotiates their salaries, pays those salaries out of league funds, and determines largely who goes where, and when. The league has a draft where the eligible players are all corralled and portioned off which, while it may work for gridiron football, is entirely foreign to what American soccer players know and love about the global game. Further, the control that the operators and investors have in selecting the players for their teams from the draft, or otherwise, are negligible.
The operating agreements, as of 2002, provided that the operators and investors would not bid independently for players against the league to ensure league control. Also, no team may exceed the maximum player budget established by the MLS management committee, and MLS may terminate any operating agreement with an operator/investor of one of MLS’s teams on its own initiative, or by a two third vote of the board, if an operator/investor is deemed to have failed to act in the best interests of the league. In short, it feels like a monopoly, but legally, it isn’t.
This structure is not without its existing critics but the U.S. courts have already disposed of any legal criticism in 2002, where the First Circuit Court of US Appeals upheld a lower court finding that MLS was acting legally despite player complaints. Fraser v. MLS involved eight MLS players who filed a class action lawsuit, arguing that the league’s single entity ownership was as sham to suppress player salaries, and that MLS conspired with the U.S. Soccer Federation to eliminate competition.
According to the players, “MLS centrally establishes and administers rules for the acquisition, assignment, and drafting of players, and all player assignments are subject to guidelines set by the Management Committee. As a result, the league as a whole determines who plays where and how much they get paid.” The legal claims the players charged the MLS and its operators- investors were antitrust in nature, essentially arguing that the MLS monopolized or attempted to monopolize the market for professional soccer in the U.S. Both judge and jury disagreed with the players, in part because there was competition with the premier leagues in Europe and Latin America, and from the lower level leagues in the US like the USL, to make any sort of monopoly impossible.
But compare MLS with the Premier League, where the clubs owns the league, and not the reverse as in MLS. Per the Premier League’s official website, the league is owned by 20 shareholder member clubs, whose membership in the league depends on how well they do in the season play. The shareholder clubs meet quarterly, and are each entitled to one vote. The FA is a special shareholder, with veto rights in the areas of appointment of chairman and chief executive, and promotion and relegation, but otherwise have no say on other aspects of the league.
Any criticism or questions surrounding MLS’s business decisions often involves a harkening back to the NASL days, when soccer was not nearly as global. But to put some things in perspective, NASL largely failed because of over expansion to an otherwise uneducated American public, and more subtly, perhaps because it attempted to change the format of the game.
During the NASL years, a countdown clock was used for games (working its way back from 90 minutes to zero), any match that ended in a draw required a shoot out, and the league brought in imported, past their prime, but still major, players. There was not a lot of homegrown talent, and thus, not a lot of homegrown interest. Despite this, MLS is borrowing from some of the NASL’s biggest mistakes – attempting to Americanize a sport by making its league similar to other American sports leagues (read: the use of a draft, and the simple existence of the MLS Players Union due to the lack of player autonomy), seemingly forgetting that soccer has universally found a way to succeed without America’s input on how it should be run.
Even further, MLS has had an effect on how other new leagues are formed. The Australian A-League shares with MLS the same sort of franchising elements, lacks the competitive promotion and relegation system, and uses salary caps and marquee/designated player exemptions to control player wages.
To those that have problems with the sky-high salaries of most top footballers, and the amount of money that is utilized in other leagues, MLS is a dream, but maybe not the best option for the state of the global game as it is today. Platini can talk all he wants about the error in paying such high transfer fees for players like Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo, but those major leagues reflect an economical confidence in the game to make such expenditures possible.
As stated on NPR last week by Steven Goff, Real Madrid likely doesn’t have the $220 million dollars on hand that it paid to acquire Kaka and Ronaldo, but Real Madrid is good for it. Goff argued that clubs like Real Madrid are institutions, and no bank wants to let it collapse no matter how much debt it has. Real Madrid will likely recoup its investment via its TV rights, jerseys, and team sponsorships.
As stated before, there are some criticisms that some “American style” measures are needed, like revenue sharing and salary caps. While that might seem prudent in our troubled economic times, it’s probably not needed. Real Madrid did this sort of astronomical purchase spree once before with the first round of Galacticos, and they’re doing it again now. Their first foray didn’t seem push the club to insolvency, but it has perpetuated the culture that, whether greedy or not, tends to create competitive and fascinating soccer.
Time will tell if major clubs with loads of debt collapse American bank style or not, but MLS has not given itself or its teams the ability to catch up with the global market they participate. Regardless of how the NASL tried to do American soccer before, soccer has changed. It has become more of a global game, and allowing the teams that compose MLS more autonomy does not mean that it will doom American soccer as it once did.
MLS and its teams should have been given the chance to remedy the mistakes of America’s younger soccer years independently, instead of being boxed into such a paternal league that makes decisions for its teams, and its fans, so unilaterally.
The MLS is run like a socialist system within a capitalist nation. Sports is naturally a capitalist system so let it operate as such. Competition is the key and if a club goes bankrupt or is relegated, good. It means they do not deserver to response domestic American soccer.
Cherie and Jake. Yes and Yes.
This is the 17th attempt (depending on how you count them) to bring top division soccer to the USA that doesn’t include an open league system, promotion/relegation and full autonomy for clubs. Yet, they keep trying. Seems like they’d start to realize that you can’t impose an American Franchise model on this game by now – but alas…
We now have the basic outline for a sixty team three tiered league system with promotion and relegation. Promotion and relegation isn’t, in and of itself, the problem – it’s that we keep letting a bunch of execs buy top division soccer and own it. Only American supporters can join together and end this redundant experiment. Clubs need to be as accessible as the game itself, and rise and fall on their own merits, not as part of a corporation. http://www.soccerreform.us
first of all: its not bloody soccer!
its football, so call it football, jesus
There are so many errors in this article I don’t even know where to start. Yes, MLS technically “owns” each of the teams but they don’t control which players go to which teams. Teams have their own scouting operations and make trips across America and other countries to find players. They can sign whomever they want, as long as they fit within the constraints of the league imposed salary cap (which includes the Designated Player exception for players like Juan Pablo Angel, Ljungberg, Beckham, Barros Schelotto, Luciano Emilio and others). The team can also draft whomever they want, without any league interference. If the author ever followed the draft they would see that some clubs, Like New England with Steve Nicol and Paul Mariner, seem to consistently make good decisions and help their team while others do not. Is the draft system perfect? No. But is a mechanism to distribute
american college players. Teams have their own youth development systems which are just starting to bear fruit and will likely become a more important source of talent in the future, again with no direction from the league. Most teams find their best players not through the draft, but by scouting the globe to find quality players at prices the league can afford, just like every other team in the world. The main difference is that MLS has a salary cap, which is set too low, and is expected to rise in the next collective bargaining agreeement which will take effect next year. The cap ensures that the league can weather difficult economic times, like now. While I hope that it can be abolished in the future it is likely necessary for the near-term.
@ erwf exactly its football not soccer
but really though they need to change this conference format and use a single league format maybe they will never have a pro/rel system like in Europe but the current systems sucks as a weak underperforming team can make the playoffs get lucky and win the title not the team that played best all season its really simple people the team with the most points at the end of the season wins Period.
@ erwf and sheldon
the article is about MLS so he used the term ’soccer’. no big deal so chill out.
i mostly agree with ‘golden child’s points, the current situation and salary cap is for the near-term. There is some autonomy for each club with regards to players and scouting/drafts as long as it is in the boundaries of MLS guidelines which is necessary for now. And for using single league format, i don’t think it would work right now as there is not enough teams in the league to have promotions/relegations. Any team lagging behind in points by mid-season would have meaningless games to play for. The focus of the league is to expand and increase its fanbase and eliminating the playoff format would negate competitive interests for some clubs and its fans. As much as we would like to have a ‘deserving’ champion like in the leagues in Europe, the growth of soccer/football in North America is the main priority. People should be patient with MLS trying to establish the sport in the US/Canada as the sport doesn’t have a lot of roots or history here like other sports like baseball, basketball or even hockey etc. Imagine trying to establish baseball in Europe, wouldn’t be that easy.
no, he should not chill because the sport is called football by the whole world apart from americans.
First of all, it’s called football. We have a major problem in this country of so called premier, select and rec systems that refuse to treat the game anything other than a social event. I have not found one club in this country that treats player development seriously. It’s all nothing more than a unit count with these clubs. The entire structure is wrong and we have all of these clubs structured as non profits to take advantage of grants from the USSF and from local parks and recs. The youth players in this country can barely dribble and chew gum at the same time let alone be able to play a technical and tactical game. Parent run all of the clubs and don’t have a clue who a club like Bayern Munich is let alone what it would take to compete with a club like that. The only clubs the people in this country are aware of are the EPL teams which if you took away the non British players the league wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Our licensing system is ran by British coaches that only know how to teach attacking the space behind. The list is endless and it’s time this country hands out the pink sheets from the top to the bottom. Every time the USSF has hired somebody to come in and advise them the results are the same. The individual or group comes in from Holland or Portugal or another real football nation and says “hey you guys don’t have a clue what your doing” and the USSF gets all bent out of shape and fires them and goes about their business of accomplishing nothing. US football (soccer for the dim witted) has had over 100 years to figure it out and put the right system in place. They have failed. Time to bring in some new blood that knows what technical and tactical training and coaching is. Last but not least, look at the influence in the US. We have the British influence and the Hispanic influence from Mexico. Ask the question what have these nations done? When have they lifted the World Cup? Well Mexico….never and England….one time and that was 1966 and a controversial win. Wake up America, it’s called football and the countries that have consistantly been able to develop world class players are not even looked at when it comes to putting a youth system in place in this country.
so why is this site you’re in is called soccerlens?
First of all i’m a purist when it comes to this game. America is one of those countries that has to be different. We go to Germany and we expect them to speak english. We go to Russia and we expect them to speak english…..pretty arrogant don’t you think? For some reason this country wants to do everything different from what every body else is doing without consideration to what actually works. America is one of a few countries that call the game soccer. Even countries that call it commonly soccer such as Australia officially call the game football. The federation in Australia is called Football Federation Australia. So think about it for a second, do you use your foot or a sock to move the ball around the field? What in the world would you do with a sock in the first place? Does it really have any importance in the equation other then to help keep a shin guard from falling off your leg? What is Soc-cer, or Socc-er anyways? Doesn’t make any sense does it?
first of all i’m not in europe so i’m used to calling football ’soccer’ as i’m into NFL as well as any other sports. Football here is NFL and european football is soccer. Maybe if i’m outside North America then it would be wise for me to use ‘football’ when referring to the game. Maybe i shouldn’t use the word ’soccer’ here in Soccerlens. Again, the article is about MLS, not German, Russian, or Australian football. No need to give the psycho mambo jambo about me using the term ’soccer’ which doesn’t mean that i don’t know much about football or i’m dim witted. You ask ‘What in the world would you do with a sock in the first place?’ Only a kid would try to make a point with a remark like that.
The term “soccer” is derived from “association football”. “Association” began being referred to as “assoc” and then later “soccer”.
By the way, this all happened in England so if anyone wants to place blame with where/why/who calls football soccer, than look to the UK.
Australia’s nickname for it’s national team is the Socceroos.
Many countries have other sports that are also referred to as football. Using the term soccer enables the speaker/writer to differentiate from rugby, ARF, American Football, etc.
Everyone posting here should get off their high horse regarding NOT calling the game soccer. FYI – you’re on a site called SOCCERlens and you came here knowing what you’re getting into. If you don’t like it, go away.
I’m sitting here laughing my ass off at all the “football purists” on SOCCERlens bitching about people calling the game soccer vs. football. And TC-COYS post is pretty funny as well.
For the record, I’m an American and I generally call the game soccer. If I talk to my friends and tell them I’m going to play football, they automatically assume I’m wearing a helmet in pads. The times I’ve been in Europe I’ve ventured to call it football, which I agree makes more logical sense, but I feel like a total fraud when I do it. Like I’m trying to be more European, which is just weird.
When it comes down to it, who gives a damn what its called. Its fun to play and fun to watch. How about you spend time arguing about how lucky the US was to get through to the semis and how bad we’re going to lose to Spain instead of arguing over what the game is called.
Jesus, what a website and what a blog. And yes, it’s football. No I’m not a Brit. As a matter of fact in my personal opinion the Brits have ruined the game in this country but it is called football unless you’re an American with a rec mentality. Do any of you people actually play the game or are you all armchair? Just curious. So back to the subject, yes American Soccer (there, you happy you fricken whiners) should become more European. Do you know of any premier youth teams in this country that can compete with Bayern’s youth system? Or even one of those EPL teams that everyone in this country loves so much? Not going to happen. Europe trains five days a week, how often do American clubs train? Two days a week at best. If we want to be capable of competing with the best, then train like the best. Don’t expect to Americanize everything and get the same results as Europe. 100 years guys and gals, this country has had over 100 years to get there crap together and put the right system in place. Do you think they’ll be able to do it within the next 100? I bet not, unless they tear the whole thing down, get rid of the bloated dead weight that’s hanging on to their jobs for dear life and put in the proper structure. Yeah, like a bunch of parents are going to be able to put together a program that can compete with Bayern Munchen. JESUS PEOPLE, PULL THE HEAD OUT!
@creighton
you are trying to make a point by stating the obvious,you twit. Ofcourse i doub’t there’s a youth system in this country that can compete with a big club with a long history like Bayern’s youth team which i think it’s not even the best in Europe. If you wanna talk about youth systems -Barcelona, Man Utd. or Arsenal are the ones that continually produce great footballers. Of Bayern’s current squad only 3 have come from their youth academy- Rensing,Lahm, and Schweinsteiger. And they came through the ranks years ago.
Can Europe provide a baseball youth system that can compete with that of this country or some of the latin american countries. I doubt that. Because the passion for the game is not there like the passion for european football is not that great in this country with four other major sports. Stop arguing the obvious like you actually know about the game. And if you don’t like this SOCCERlens website, then pull your head out of you ass and get out!
Hey fearflash, i’ve played with internationals from all over the world so don’t ever question my knowledge about this game or my abliltiy to coach it. And yes I mean people who have played for their national team at the junior and senior level. The article is should the MLS become more European. The obvious answer is yes, i’m just making some observations that most people in this country don’t even consider when they start or are part of a youth club. Man U is not the all be it, have you ever seen them train? These Brits can’t even call an inside scissor an inside scissor, they call it a step over when you don’t actually step over the ball you scissor around it. Man U’s senior team is one of the luckiest group of player’s i’ve ever seen. Remember 1999 and how the colors for Bayern were already on the trophy until Satan himself showed up to help Man U put a couple in the net? Let me ask you something, when was the last time England won the World Cup? That’s right 1966. Who has consistantly produced top level players in Europe year after year and has the internationl record to prove it? It’s the Dutch, the Germans, Italians and now Spain and Russia is coming along quite well. Bayern is a good youth system, one of the best. Man U is average. Barca can produce but so can Lyon or Zenit for that matter and one of the best of course is Ajax. You do know that most of the clubs in Europe use pretty much the same drills with variations don’t you? Look at American soccer and tell me what the British influence has done for the youth in this country. That’s right, next to nothing. Pop in some old internationl matches from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and notice the difference in technique between a team like West Germany and England. Or the Dutch, the Russian’s or the French. Should I continue? Should we continue this little party or should we just agree to disagree and let somebody else chime in here?
Hey fearlash, one more thing you little prick, the only country in the world that is still losing ground in this game at the youth level is the US. The Dutch, the French, they’ve pretty much all reached out to African, Asian and Oceanic nations and have helped with developing youth systems as much as those nations will allow. Look what’s goin on in Russia. Russian National team….a Dutch coach. Zenit….a Dutch coach, so why does this country refuse to go with a system and program that can produce player’s? A few things, for one our system is ran by British coaches, coaching licenses and all. Another problem is the structure of American youth soccer, parents run all the clubs and they treat them like any other business model meaning unit count. It’s all about the unit count and not enough good coaches to cover the unit count and no system in place. Thirdly, it’s Americanized, Americans refuse to do it any other way. There is absolutely no real corporate sponsorship in American youth soccer. You like Man U huh? Did you know that Man U’s youth system has a bunch of Dutch coaches in it. These guys go to England and the British system turns them into average coaches. They even sound like Brits now. Well done lads, oh that’s a lovely ball.
I don’t disagree that the US needs to improve its youth level. You sound like you’re the only one who knows about it, you motormouth. The problem might take years to get fix or it may never happen. There’s a lot of writers/people that comments on this website that’s pretty knowledgeable about the game. You think you know better than anybody else because you are a ‘football purist’. HA HA HA. You remind me of Rafa Benitez. Save your rant to those people who would LISTEN to you.