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TSN Soccer Analyst

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The 20th season of Major League Soccer is set to kick off on March 6, as reigning MLS Cup champions LA Galaxy are scheduled to host the revamped Chicago Fire. However, the fate of that game - and of the MLS season, in fact - is dependent on the outcome of labour talks scheduled to continue over the weekend.

The MLS Players Union and league management are currently negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. The previous CBA expired at the end of January and the players have been preparing for the start of the new season in good faith, in hopes of a new agreement being reached. If that does not happen, it is likely that the players will call a strike before the first game next Friday.

There are many issues at stake, including the league’s paltry salary cap and minimum player salary, currently sitting at $3.1 million and $48,500, respectively. These are not the most contentious issue, though. The hill that the players are willing to die on is free agency.

At present, players whose contracts expire are not free to join another club as a free agent in MLS. They are free to leave the league and play elsewhere, but this is not a realistic option for most MLS players, for a variety of reasons. The players want the option of moving clubs within MLS when their contracts expire, an option that exists in most professional leagues around the world. 

The league contends that not having free agency allows them to control the growth of the league and prevents teams from bidding against each other for players. The league’s position is that it is operating in an international market for players and that being able to respond to offers with a single voice is a key principle of the league’s slow and steady progress.

Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen said this recently about free agency: “How do you have free agency when you're going to go talk to yourself at the next employer? And so, that's not going to change. That's a go-nowhere conversation. When you look at all the owners, they've all been in pro basketball, football, baseball and that was the one thing they all vowed they'd never do is go through that again.”

So essentially, the owners want complete control over not only how much the players are paid, but also more importantly, where players are allowed to earn a living.

If I were an MLS player, I would be preparing myself to strike.

The league can easily solve this, though. Free agency doesn’t have to mean unrestricted free agency and I believe that the players are bright enough to know that this simply won’t be an option for them. However, a number of factors can be utilized to create a form of restricted free agency that can work for both the league and for the players.

Years played in MLS

Given that many of the players in MLS will play the bulk of their professional careers in the league, it is important for those players to be treated fairly. Right now, that simply isn’t happening.

To rectify this, the league could grant players who have played in the league for a specific duration (three, four or five years, for example) restricted free agency. This way, players have the opportunity to change clubs when their contracts expire, while still giving the club some form of compensation if they “lose” a player.

Draft picks

If a team decides to sign a restricted free agent from another MLS club, the league could simply grant the team that is losing the player the first-round draft pick the following season from the team that is signing the player. If a first-round draft pick is deemed to be too high a price, the league could negotiate an acceptable compromise or develop a formula based on the value assigned to the player in question.

Allocation money

The Monopoly money of MLS, allocation money is essentially a form of currency that teams can use to sign players who are new to MLS, to re-sign an existing MLS player or to “buy down” a player’s salary budget charge below the league maximum of $387,500. Allocation money is often traded between teams within MLS and is a valuable commodity within the league.

The league could insist that if a team signs a restricted free agent from another MLS club, allocation money is exchanged as part of the transaction. This would give respite to the club that is losing the player and act as a mild deterrent for clubs looking to load up on restricted free agents. There are an infinite number of ways that allocation money can be used as compensation in such a situation.

Percentage increase restriction and the right to match

One of the league’s fears is that its owners will cannibalize the league by bidding against each other for players already in the league. Teams are already competing against each other in a global market for players, but what the league doesn’t want is for a player earning $80,000 per year to have a breakout season in the last year of his contract, prompting other clubs to offer him double or triple his wages.

The league can control this by capping the percentage increase that other teams are allowed to offer restricted free agents, as well as by giving the club that currently holds the player’s rights the opportunity to match any offer the player receives. For example, if the percentage increase is capped at 25 per cent, a restricted free agent who earns $100,000 per year can be offered no more than $125,000 per year by the bidding club. The current club would then have the right to match that offer or pass on that opportunity and accept whatever other forms of compensation (draft picks, allocation money) were in place.

There are numerous other mechanisms that can be utilized to make restricted free agency work for MLS and I cannot see how such a system would be fatal for the league. Would it force the MLS clubs to do a better job of scouting, signing and retaining players? Absolutely, but isn’t this what professional sports is supposed to be about?

MLS has a very unique business model that has allowed to the league to grow slowly and steadily for the last two decades. Some form of free agency exists in every other major league in North America, but the only way it is going to happen in MLS is if both sides see it as an opportunity to grow together, rather than as a significant risk for owners.