The big story hanging over MLS is the collective bargaining agreement coming up shortly and the Players Union and the MLS Owners do not seem to be moving towards a solution at a decent pace...or any noticeable pace at all. As a result, some of the foreign talent could be looking to move on and out of MLS, rather than wait for the situation to be resolved. Freddie Ljunberg, who some doubted if he would ever take MLS seriously, has not reported to Seattle Sounders training camp and is reportedly looking for work in Europe. Its tough to tell if he is a trend setter, or just a one-off kind of guy, but this is a story to keep an eye on as we move towards the start of the season.
Two bits of good news. Freddie Ljungberg is returning to Seattle for next season. And, this is more of not bad news, the MLS and the players union will be extending their bargaining deadline to February 12. I believe it was the 31st.
Updated the summary at the top. Lots of smaller moves in, a couple big moves out, and a few big trades. Nothing big coming in as of yet though. But, the Theirry Henry to New York rumors continue.
Steve Ralston joined AC St. Louis today, becoming the second division side's first player. Ralston was a youth player growing up in St. Louis, one the major cradles of US soccer. He went on to become the MLS all-time leader in assists and games played. He tore his ACL at the end of last season with the Revolution and chose recently to announce that he would not be resigning with the team. Rumors were that he would rejoin former Revs assistant Paul Mariner at Plymouth or go home to St. Louis. The 35-year-old was one of the last MLS originals in the league and has never played outside of the United States, despite being one of the top players every year in MLS.
Interesting goings-on in New York. NYRB Academy product Juan Aguedo is in training with the club and will remain for a couple of weeks before deciding on MLS or joining Milionairos in Colombia. I was also reading that the numbers of US youth players in Mexico is expanding rapidly and Tigres actually has a dozen Americans in their academy. I'm hoping that these two stories combine to convince MLS to change the academy system. Its something very foreign to US sports, but its also the major developmental arm of football in the world.
And for an update to the biggest story that no one is talking about, MLS has been losing days in their labor talks due to the DC snow. With 35 inches falling in the past five days, the city has shut down and no one can get to these meetings. SI has the sparse details here. No word yet on whether or not they will extend the deadline further to reflect the lost meeting time.
With four days to go, things seem to have taken a turn...for the worse. A very sharp turn in fact and all over the weekend. Here are the articles: First, the MLS Players Union spoke to Jeff Carlisle of SoccerNet stating that if the league was unwilling to negotiate in areas that the MLSPU was focusing on, a lockout would be inevitable. Kansas City's Jimmy Conrad and Houston's Pat Onstad, a couple of elder-statesmen of MLS made it pretty clear that they have presented their side several times and have received little to no response from the league. Conrad states that the players' proposals all work within the confines of a single-entity structure. Then, Washington Post's Soccer Insider, Steve Goff blogged about MLS president, Mark Abbott, coming down hard on the players union for going public with their frustrations. Abbott mentions that the league was prepared to increase spending by $60 million over the next five years, which would be the duration of the CBA. However, the league, according to Abbott, is unwilling to allow free agency within MLS. And today, Goff again blogs the response of the Players Union. This time, its from Bob Foose, MLSPU Executive Director. Foose pokes holes in the league's $60 million proposal as it would actually slow the growth of players' salaries (33% over the last five years to 26% over the next five) and does not factor in inflation or increases to the cost of living. It seems that the salary increase is mostly tied in to expansion, rather than actual increases to the average player salary. To me, it appears that if the players are granted free agency within MLS, they would be willing to make some concessions on the average salary. Currently, an average American player making $50k in MLS can let his contract expire and seek European offers (usually from Scandinavia) in the $100k range. In those cases, there is no guarantee of playing time and often, there isn't any. Many of those players return to MLS a year or two later for a contract in the $75-80k range. It seems to me that if that same player could make $80-90k in MLS with another club, he would stay in the league. What exactly is the issue with this? Worse yet, a recent trend is to replace these Americans with talent from South America that will come in for $60-75k. The purpose of the league was to develop players from the United States. Sending players to Scandinavia to not play and replacing them with South American talent is entirely counter productive to that goal.
