http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...on-garber-re-wednesdays-postponed-ny-dc-match Including the misspelling of my job title.
wow. the guy runs the league and can't get a spell checker or a secretary or know how to spell or anything?
MLS does things on the quick, and accuracy or consideration of best/right approach isn't always executed. I think it is great that this letter was written and posted (regardless of misspellings).
If he really wants to apologize he can get MLS to pay for tickets and bus for the DC fans to come up to the first Red Bull game next year (and pay for the Red Bull fans who were there as well). But that ain't gonna happen
I really wanted to see them try to play in that slop. I envisioned a shot on goal that picked up so much snow on the ball as it rolled that it bowled the goalkeeper over as it went in.
Garber is useless as a commissioner. Controlling and manipulating the weather at will is part of the job description of being a commissioner. Therefore, he failed.
He half-assed it, and yes that does equal failure. He had Sandy role trough to get NY the second leg versus DC, but he (try as he might with a subsequent nor'easter) couldn't find a weather pattern and conditions that would actually favor the bigger and more important market within that second leg.
He threw the MLS competition rules under the bus because he was unwilling to move game 1 to a neutral venue. The 2nd storm they ignored Red Bull's request to cancel the game before the storm hit, thus endangering the safety of fans who moved heaven and earth to get there. Once the cancellation request was denied they made a pathetic effort to prepare for storm. 10 guys with shovels? Mark Geiger, Ben Olsen and his players and most Red Bull players were ready to play. Hans Backe and Garber were not. Every soccer fan who has watched soccer in Europe has seen soccer played in similar snow as long as the field isn't frozen solid. This week is just one failure in a long list of Garber failures. Garber has been a great political and economic leader for MLS, but he's repeatedly shown that he will bend the integrity of the league without any shame
Yet, the results on the field stand. The higher seed moves on. (It may have been "without any shame" -- but it did come with a public apology to the fans, so that's something.) And the bent "integrity of the league" won't have any significant or long-standing negative impact on the continued and future growth and success of the league and business.
I love that this has been up for over a day and MLSS still hasn't corrected the spelling of "commissioner".
I'd rather have a commissioner who doesn't get into a pickle where he has to apologize. Single entity is just frustrating. I'm tired of a commissioner overlord who can trump the independence of any club at any time with no accountability. Making up rules is what I expect from a shady Eastern European league, not in a country that holds sporting integrity in such high esteem ...
Get over it. There was a damn hurricane that devastated the east coast. The New York Red Bulls were entitled to play half of that series at home. So forcing them to play a game in a neutral venue (which couldn't happen, for reasons that have already been laid out) would have ALSO been throwing MLS competition rules under the bus. But hey, it wouldn't have hurt your team, so what do you care? Losing the HFA for the final match was hurting DC, but forcing NY to play at a neutral site would have tilted the scale much, much, much further in the opposite direction. By all accounts, the storm was more severe than they had predicted. If the game had been postponed, and the storm had petered itself out, I can only imagine the amount of "Mickey Mouse League" posts I'd be reading right now. I don't see what's so wrong with actually waiting to see if the cancellation is necessary before having a cancellation. OK, this I can get with. I can't believe they weren't more prepared for this than they actually were. But doesn't that fall on the Red Bulls' management, and the stadium grounds crew? What, is Don Garber supposed to be personally inspecting the equipment at every MLS venue? The fact that Ben Olsen and his players wanted to play doesn't mean they were right. With the way that storm was continuing, even if they got the field cleared, the snow would have covered the field back up long before the match, or even a half, would have concluded. Which would have led to a stoppage, a series of stoppages, or the possibility of some kind of dispute because the officials wouldn't be able to see the lines. Oh, well if they do it in Europe...
Would you like to point to the part in MLS rules that states that a home game only counts as a home game if it's played in your usual stadium? I've looked and I can't find anything about stadiums in the rules except field dimensions and the like. On the other hand I found the part in the rules that gives the 2nd seed home field advantage. No league in the world stipulates that your home games can only be played in one specific stadium because anyone with common sense knows that an emergency can come up any time. Nowhere in the rules does it say that you have to punish an unaffected team when the emergency arises. As for neutral venues there's a big difference between "couldn't happen" and "didn't want to happen". I've yet to see anything laid out as to why it was physically impossible to move game 1 to Philly or Columbus
I'd rather have a fan base that understands the Commish works for the owners and not the other away around...
I have. I personally can't vouch for any of these reasons, but... I've heard that there were scheduling conflicts at PPL. I've also seen that it takes some time to coordinate events at these venues. You have to staff it out. You have to get security. You have to work out the logistics of ticketing. You can't just wing those things -- they take time. Could it technically, possibly have happened? Hell if I know. But this seemed like the simplest solution. And by the way... your club agreed to go along with it. If they could accept it, why can't you? And you won the damn series, by the way.
There was nothing scheduled at PPL that weekend. The key is they would of had to start planning the switch before Sandy hit, not 2 days after. Actually our GM was very clear that they did not want this solution. MLS didn't really give an alternative solution. Garber placated the media and said they looked into PPL but never specified why that didn't work out. And anyway my FO went along with it because our GM is basically an MLS underling that happens to be affiliated with DC United. The joy of single entity. In any other soccer league in the world this whole mess would of been explained clearly if nothing else because the media actually ask questions and GMs are not beholden to some all powerful commissioner
Yeah, I mean the league growing leaps and bounds under his tenure means nothing right. His handling of an almost unwinnable situation is certainly a sign he is worthless. No matter how this was handled, people were going to bitch. Could the league have handled it better? Sure. But, regardless of what he did, lots of people were going to be unhappy. The team that apparently had gotten screwed out of this actually advanced. It's over now, time to move on.
Then what are you complaining about? NYRB had the first leg as their home game. They just played it at RFK. DC DID have the deciding second leg as their home game. They just played it at Red Bull Arena. I mean, since playing the game in the usual stadium doesn't actually constitute a home game, and all.
Bigsoccer rule number w/e thou shalt not criticize Garber (some posters here literally work for the league).
They moved the Big East tournament there from RBA with very little notice. A little forethought before and during the storm could have gone a long way. If staffing was that big of a problem I can promise you, DC would have sent people to Philly to help staff it.