Payne: "New Young Designated Player Program"

This is news to me--according to Payne, the league office is finding and signing young DPs and then allocating them draft-style to teams (TFC is first). Also says youth DP doesn't count as one of the 3.

The phrase "made available to teams" really stands out. MLSHQ is clearly directing this, perhaps tired of the lack of action/competence out vis a vis the previous youth DP policy.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/socce...oss-kevin-payne-tfc-embarks-on-culture-change

“Also, we’re first in line to participate in the league’s new young, designated player program. So, as players are acquired by the league and made available to the teams, we’re at the top of the list. This is a key program because the players will come in at a discounted cap charge and they also will not count (as one of team’s three) designated players.”

Nice to see the league, apparently, trying new ways to alter and improve the DP program.

(Certainly it may help to stop referring to these specific players as "designated" in public statements, but simply and privately as a league business manage the book keeping and "off-budget" tracking for specific players. The "Designating" publicly of the DPs doesn't really help anyone, imo.)

That is weird... a rule like that should've been be announced by the league a long.time ago

Interesting. Kasper hinted that the league was covering some of the costs for Rafael, but this sounds like a more involved allocation system than anything we've seen in previous years. They won't sign players at random, so the allocated players would have to be based on teams' input.

That Rafael kid with DC

It will be pretty interesting to see what quality of player MLS signs for this program. When how if players will graduate to a full cap hit sort of like GA players. Also how players get selected, I'm sure the order will be like every other allocation order hence TFC is first. Will they sign a group of players and TFC will get first pick or will they sign a player at a time then TFC has first dibs.

Very interesting development.

Pros:
- Encourages signing of young and talented players league-wide.
- Utilizes centralized resources to scout and evaluate foreign talent that would otherwise be too costly for some individual clubs to find.

Cons:
- No transparency, and even more weird rules to add to already-convoluted system. (A separate Young DP allocation order?)
- Potential dis-incentive for individual clubs to do their own leg work in finding talent.

- "Club identity" may suffer if they aren't scouting/seeking their own players.

Bottom Line: Good move in the short term that should help bring a few more quality players to the league, but long-term we can't have the league doing the work for every club when it comes to acquiring players.

isn't there a league wide initiative to share scouting info or something already?

Yes, MLS has their own scouts in multiple places and teams can tap into that knowledge if they want. I sort of see this as an extension of what they were doing with the internationals they have had in the draft, but also the start of something a bit new for the league. There was a report by a team in Ecuador that MLS signed two of their players on loan with an option to buy and turned around and loaned those players to LDU Quito. It seems like MLS may be taking a more active role in finding players that have potential and then either offering them to MLS clubs or offering them out to foreign teams. It seems they are looking at an entirely different way of increasing the quality of players available to MLS teams (and also possibly making money on other deals).

if the MLS's "foreign" players they've added to the draft the past few years i wouldn't trust MLS-HQ further than i could throw them ... especially not with DP level young players.

just let MLS teams sign a young DP with a lower cap hit that doesn't count against the 3 (and any of the 3 could also be young DPs of course). keep MLS HQ and a bunch of random, clandestine, easily manipulated "rules" out of it ...

"Letting" the individual clubs do things on their own and "keeping MLS HQ out of it" are not central tenets of the single-entity MLS.

MLS signs the players and centrally holds their contracts. "A bunch of random, clandestine, easily manipulated 'rules'" related to those signings and team allocation mechanisms are exactly the type of things that (best) allow MLS to be the business and league that it is.

Trouble is, almost no one was.

Makes sense MLSHQ would be at the forefront of something like this since they get the lion's share of any transfer fees later on.

And yes, that whole quasi-subterranean LDU Quito/MLS relationship has been interesting to follow, as well.

the term 'designated player' has implied meaning of 'big name' 'superstar' for a lot of people that follow MLS and I think is throwing off a lot of teams from making moves to sign young DPs due expectations heaped on a DP signing of any kind

It is also interesting that the president of Motagua in Honduras helps the league when they want information on any player in the Honduran league.

Seeing as how all the international players were supposed to be diamond in the rough type players and didn't cost that much, I'd hardly use that as a baseline. I mean this year they brought a a player from Cameroon that was in the U-20 World Cup and a player that was in the U-17 World Cup for Ecuador. If they actually put money behind the signings they may actually identify some really good players for all we know.

Wonder if this is tied in with the whole Alex Lopez deal that is (allegedly) being worked on between Olimpia and Houston and Toronto. The little info we have suggests that Houston wants to sign him outright while TFC would take him in a draft (we assumed was the SuperDraft).

The Alex Lopez situation was the first thing that popped in my mind too. There are a number of young Hondurans that the league may be lining up to buy and then allocate to teams. This would be helpful to a lot of teams if the big issue behind the clubs not picking them up before was either needing to use a fair amount of allocation money on or spending their own money on them.

I think you're on to something there

But that would raise a question. Lets say Houston buys Alex outright and TFC picks up another Honduran in this Draft. Does MLS only pay for part of TFC's pick while Houston is on their own, or is MLS willing to take part of the cost on themselves regardless of how the player is acquired, so long as they meet certain requirements (age, etc)? And would Alex count as a DP for Houston and TFC's player not?

Seems....strange if that is how it is. I dunno. Need more info.

IMO this is has a potential for more murky single entity nonsense.

The league just needs to set clear and transparent parameters as to what the roster rules are and let the clubs operate to the best of their abilities inside those parameters. Let the club decide the age of the player, the price tag, the marketability or any other factors that go into the decision making process. Keep it simple. Instead of all these absurd salary cap exceptions (generation adidas, DP, allocation money etc ...) just raise the salary cap. IMO the only salary cap exempt players should be homegrown players.

Enough of the allocation money, the allocation order, weighed lotteries, drafts, trades, secret incentives and league meddling in buying/selling players. Enough. These league rules become more and more convoluted each year. It gets to the point where a good GM is not even about scouting and developing talent, but about how to successfully navigate this league bureaucracy.

If I was a player I would never come to MLS unless I had a no trade/draft/lottery clause in my contract.

Dunno. We are all trying to read into what it is when all we have is a statement from someone that has very little info in it.

Just because you don't understand the rules doesn't mean that MLS teams and their respective GMs don't understand the rules.

Food for thought.