Alright, let’s look at the most confusing thing in the world, the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations that STILL haven't been agreed upon by the Major League Soccer's club owners and the MLS Players Union, or the MLSPU. If you aren't familiar with American sports, each of the major sports leagues has a Players Union.
Basically, players designated from each team to be leaders meet with owners and sign contracts every couple years regarding changes in the league and how they would like it to be run, or new rules and such, and they both have to agree on this to get it done. Usually if the owners do not comply, the players will play the greatest leverage ever in a negotiation, those fat rich guys will just be fat guys, because the players will strike and there will be no mega money coming to the owners.
Here's the predicament: The MLSPU and Owners haven't agreed to the new contract. The players want free agency, because right now in MLS, the players are technically signed by the league, and the MLS designates them to teams, if they are big players. The owners don't want free agency because that would mean players could leave after a contract and go to any other club freely.
This would mean a more important and sought-after player, the price for that player would go up, meaning the owners would have to spend more money, and we ALL know how much it hurts millionaires to see an extra couple thousand dollars go away, like they can't afford that plus their month in the Bahamas at a luxury resort, right???
Here's the other problem that could mean the players won't be able to play their leverage: The foreign players could find it not worth the fight and NOT strike, making the deal almost impossible to do for the players that don't just play in the USA but care for the development of the game in the country.
So, with all this going on right now, we could see three outcomes:
- The deal could go through before the season is set to kick off this Friday and the season will move forward as planned.
- The players could collectively go on strike and delay the start of the season until a deal can be struck between the Players Union and the league owners.
- We still might have a league playing, but without the big players like Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, Robbie Keane, and so on.
The latest news on the issue suggests there could be some hope of a compromise in the next day or so, with the players and league owners each seemingly willing to
Will the players prevail and make the deal happen, or will the owners reign supreme? Only time will tell.