FIFA President says MLS system better than rest of world (sorta)...

Really?? Americans are successful because of the balanced league (whatever balanced means here) and the most successful leagues in the world are not successful? Really??

 

I depends on how they're defining success - either fiscal success (Europe) or parity success (MLS).

 

possible...

 

Don't disagree with his ideas, would love to see a more balanced playing field, with star players spread more evenly and a huge fan of limiting the squad sizes. But none of this will happen, everything here involves labor and I don't see any way you could limit players ability to move clubs and make money. Would be in violation of labor laws and in this case you dealing with 150 + countries and their individual labor laws.

 

Absolutely dead on, but squad sizes could be limited without dealing with player movement.
The huge stars would remain in the employ of a few clubs, but the star level squaddies rotting at the mega clubs would be playing elsewhere, which is a huge win for fans. Though I suppose the CFG model gets around the loan ban. Still, the players are playing elsewhere, which is good.
But the rest is typical FIFA having no idea about the limits of their power.

 

Chelsea have 36 players out on loan, so limiting loans out would hit them hard.

 

He's making a jab at lack of pro/rel in the US. If the US model is so successful, then why can't the US qualify for the WC, Olympics, win CCL, produce world-class players, etc.? Also, you DO notice that MLS' quality on the field has not improved compared to the world, right? MLS isn't even a top 100 league in the world.

 

You're just going to make all kinds of ridiculous statements until you get red carded from every forum aren't you?

 

This. There are 211 FIFA nations, do people really think that we are in the lower half of quality?

 

Only people who've never actually been to see games in many of these leagues and refuse to view MLS honestly.

 

Anyone who watched the games last night can attest to how far MLS has come in the last few years.

 

The highest I've seen MLS feature in articles about tje best leagues in the world is 5th, although that includes factors other than the standard of football. The lowest I've seen based purely on the standard of soccer is 15th. But I may have missed a few that rank MLS lower than that.

Financially: Six MLS clubs make top 30 of SoccerEx's Football Finance 100 rankings

 

MLS needs to up it's level of play, clearly, now that it seems to be getting it's finances in order. I don't think that was a point that was fair to make as recently7 as a couple years ago, but it seems to be now. And, to be fair, the level of play this year is taking a big step up.
MLS clubs in the top 100 globally, from that piece:
The LA Galaxy (14), New York Red Bulls (23), Seattle Sounders (24), New York City FC (25) and New England Revolution (28) were the six MLS teams that made the top 30 of the rankings, the most clubs in the top 30 of any league apart from the English Premier League. Orlando City (37), Toronto FC (42), Houston Dynamo (44), Portland Timbers (45), Sporting Kansas City (54), San Jose Earthquakes (57), Colorado Rapids (58) and the Chicago Fire (59) were the other seven MLS clubs in the top 100.

 

The second highest number of clubs in the top 30 after England. I think lack of debt and owner's wealth has a lot to do with it.

 

And anyone who has been following MLS for a while (I started in 96) has to be amazed by this

 

I think MLS is much worse than 15th in standard of soccer.

 

The revenue stats imply otherwise, and talent tends to flow to money. I would agree that MLS is punching a bit under it's financial weight, and was moreso until recently.
But based on leagues to which I've paid a lot of attention (watched on a regular basis) I'm not sure how you can make that case.
Certainly there are leagues that are better than MLS top to bottom, in which the bottom clubs would be a step above anything on offer in MLS: But there aren't that many. The top divisions in Spain, England, Germany, Italy, France and maybe Russia would fit this criteria. I would expect TFC, playing at last year's level, to be favored for relegation from any of these.
After that, it gets iffy, though, doesn't it?
Certainly, there are leagues better in the top third than anything on offer in MLS. Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, Holland, Portugal, and the English Championship. But if you pay attention to the mid and lower reaches of these leagues and MLS doesn't look too much out of it's depth.
And then there are the leagues that have one to three really strong clubs, but in which it wouldn't be a surprise to see MLS clubs occupy the 2,3 or 4 to 16 slots, en masse. And that's a lot of leagues.
But it raises a point, what makes a better league, overall quality, or higher quality champion. I'd say the strength of the lower third of a league clubs are as important in determining a league's level as the top third. But that's just me.
I can't see much worse than 15th being possilbe. Of course, by much worse than 15th you might mean 16th to 18th, and I can see that argument. But much worse implies MLS is somewhere around 30th, and I don't see how that case can be made.

 

You're entitled to your opinion. But note the number of players earning > $500k has doubled in the last 3 years which has made a huge difference.

 

One thing Infantino said that I didn't see above is about salary caps:

"There must be a limit to the number of players a club is allowed to keep on its books and, most importantly, there must be a salary cap in football.”

 

Something MLS does better than the Euros is the transfer window. It's open at the start of the season, so clubs have two full months to identify and address weaknesses, before having to drop it for a couple months.
In Uefa leagues, without the equivalent window, meaning sept., january becomes a panic window for clubs who are already taking on water. The MLS window is open until May 1. That's enough time to see if new players fit, and to adjust. It also means the summer window isn't as panicky, but can be what it should be, a time to replace long-term injured players.

 

The Summer window is open 12 weeks.

Premier League clubs in England voted to end the summer window on the Thursday before the start of the season - on August 9 in 2018, instead of August 31. Because FIFA demands the window must be open for 12 weeks, the window will open around May 17.

 

For MLS: "The secondary transfer window for the 2018 MLS season will run July 10-August 8."
I get ending European clubs wanting the frenzy to end, but really doen'st this mostly protect the massive, rich clubs. Smaller clubs can't afford to bring in two players for one position, so they need to make sure a signing actually fits. Closing it in early august means they don't have the chance to do that.