The principle of a club option is certainly the same but the situation is different. Unless those guys are underpaid (which they aren't), objecting (which they aren't) and actively seeking to get transferred (which they aren't), I don't really think there are the same thing. Also, the mechanism on how those club options are negotiated are different than MLS. In a nutshell, you got to look at each claims case by case, see link below http://www.asser.nl/SportsLaw/Blog/...part-1-a-european-legal-mess-by-saverio-spera I'd like to point out the last paragraph stating how much of a legal mess they are but more specifically: In short, the legality of UEOs is usually dependent on the interpretations of local courts or the decisions of local social partners. However, where UEOs are deemed valid, it is always under stringent conditions such as a strict limit to the overall duration of the extended contract and the provision of a substantial increase in salary. Hence, the validity of UEOs hinges on the rather subjective evaluation of the overall fairness of a specific UEO in the context of a specific contract. According to this (An Orlando media) http://www.orlandosentinel.com/spor...rlando-city-2017-salaries-20170425-story.html Cyle Larin got a $15,000 raise to $192,000, a steal for the leading goal scorer compared to other salaries on the team. He was 9th overall on the team in salary and had a joke $15,000$ increase. Someone more familiar with Bundesliga posted this in our Voyageurs Forums: In Germany unilateral option year contracts are fairly common but the salary of the option year is always negotiated in the initial contract and player buyout clauses allowing them to buy themselves out of the contract to become a free transfer are also common. Both sides are given some protection in that if the club wants to extend the contract they usually need to pay a significant penalty to do so (a significant salary increase) while if the player wants to leave the contract early he has to pay a significant financial penalty. It seems to me that the unethical and possibly not legal/not to FIFA standard part of the MLS contracts is not that clubs have an option year but that the salary of the option year is not specified other than I suspect maybe a requirement for a slight wage increase. Europeans clearly exercise options differently than MLS, so just resting with the argument that "other leagues does it so it's ok for MLS too" is clearly misleading as it doesn't represent the whole picture nor specifies the differences in their applications. The link above where the UEO was upheld in Germany certainly corroborates that statement. To the best of my knowledge of MLS, unlike Germany, there was no way for Larin to buy himself out. Going by that, that doesn't change the fact that Larin was clearly underpaid compared to his statistics. (even local medias thinks so). The assumption that the latest increase was so substantial that it would invalidate Larin's potential case in front of FIFA is clearly inconsistent with how little raise Orlando gave him the first time around and outright laughable. ($15 000)...unbelievable. He'd had to be already ahead of Giles Barnes (.24 goals/games since 2015) for people to start entertaining giving the benefit of a doubt to Orlando. (Larin = .49 goals/games since 2015 compare to the .24 of Barnes for that same period...where he played for 3 different teams). He should have challenged that last year instead of this year. I was provided with this link as a good example of why a court challenge could have easily gone Larin's way http://www.asser.nl/SportsLaw/Blog/...-view-of-the-drc-and-the-cas-by-saverio-spera Increase in salary as a sine qua non condition for the validity of UEOs The question of the increase of the player’s salary is considered central, by both the DRC and the CAS, in deciding the validity of UEOs. In fact, an improvement of the player’s salary is considered by the DRC as a possible ‘validating’ circumstance since the first published decision on the issue.[11] The FIFA Chamber placed particular emphasis on the necessity to offset the unequal bargaining power that UEOs give to football clubs. To do that, a significant economic gain for the player must be envisaged in the contract as a result of the extension. In the view of the DRC, this is a necessary but sometimes not sufficient condition for the validity of a UEO, since the specification of the financial terms of the renewal in advance “necessarily cannot take into account, neither by the player nor the club, the possible enhancement of the player’s value, and hence earning power, over a two year period”.[12] That was clearly not the case for Larin here and I see very unlikely Orlando winning under these "specific" circumstances. I stress the word "specific" as Larin's case cannot be applied to everyone else. This is specific to him. That's most likely why MLS "rewarded" Orlando for settling with Besiktas at a "lower value" transfer fee so it didn't go to FIFA. However, the trap that people must avoid is to fall in generalization. It's equally wrong to do that.
The million dollar question my friend. Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to convince Larin to stay or wait for his transfer to play out post training camp
so if player X refuses to have club option years tacked on to their contract...what does MLS do? just refuse to sign the player? i'm trying to figure out what would possess these MLS players to continually accept MLS options on long-term deals.....why would anyone willingly accept a 4 year deal with 2 or 3 of those years as MLS option years??? are their agents being paid by MLS under the table????
It was going to be significantly more than the 15k you were running with in your whole argument in the last post.
Sure it was most likely be significantly more, but we must define what significantly more means. Even if they doubled his salary, he'd still have a valid point at saying he's underpaid. Orlando would counter that they doubled his salary. Who CAS and FIFA side with in a case where Orlando double his salary is unclear. However, Larin would be right to say that it's still well below his true value on the market. If Larin challenged Orlando last year, he'd win. Too bad we don't know what he was supposed to get but seriously, a 15k raise after all he's done during those 3 years, made the club many many time over his salary, that mind you didn't even count against the salary cap as he was signed as a Generation Adidas player, it's worst than a slap in the face.
Pretty much. Of course if you're a rookie coming out of the draft or an easily replaceable MLS player you don't really have much power to demand anything else. It's also some security in that there's a cost in not picking up your option and finding somebody else (or renegotiating with you).
As I point it out, we must avoid generalizing. Larin's case is unique. For the overwhelmingly majority of cases, what MLS offers to most players is an opportunity of a lifetime. Larin's case is unique and I doubt Galaxy, TFC or NYFC treats Larin the same way Orlando did with the numbers he was putting. This is more of a Orlando issue than an MLS issue, as pointed out in Paul Tenorio's article, Orlando's management of Larin's file was really puzzling This is is the kind of message you don't want to project
What exactly do you think the Galaxy, TFC or NYCFC would do that Orlando didn't? None of those teams would have let Larin go without an appropriate transfer fee.
Agreed, they would have transferred him last year, not low-balling him like this and keep him around to try and shop him the year after. Montreal handled Tabla the right way by selling him to Barcelona, that's what Orlando should have done last year
You have no indication that NYCFC, LAG or TFC would have sold him last year, just your view of what should have happened. LAG has always been a player friendly organization but hasn't had a history of selling players abroad. Omar Gonzalez wasn't sold abroad and was instead made a DP, which if Orlando had done to Larin you'd bemoan because it meant him staying in MLS, which you unabashedly hate. The Galaxy had many options to sell Landon, Keane, and Zardes, etc and didn't do so. They let Buddle walk instead of transferring him out. You know why? Because you don't become a good team in MLS by selling your top players. The problem is that you think they only way an MLS club can properly handle a player is to sell him for whatever a foreign club is willing to play as soon as he has foreign options. Anything other than that is tantamount to slave labor.
Well part of that could be attributed to the fact that Montreal's owner also owns a club in Italy. Montreal has also been around as a club a heck of a lot longer then Orlando City has as well. That experience plays a part. Montreal also knows how they want to build a team, and usually signs one or two established European players. It also appears to me as an outsider, that Jason Kreis and Larin did not see eye to eye. Communication amongst Larin's Agent and Orlando's FO appeared to be non-existent as well.
I’m still waiting for this Borden character to answer the question of why it is ok for Manchester United to have team only options in their player contracts but it is absolutely evil of MLS to do it. And do it without your spinning, deflection and avoiding. A clear, concise answer would be appreciated.
It ruins their world view that MLS isn’t as pure as other more established leagues, when the reality is that they all pretty much do the same thing. I expect Liga MX dropping pro/rel is really screwing with these people’s minds. I also expect in the coming years that other leagues will begin to follow their example. MLS was right all along? INCONCEIVABLE!!!!!
Fair enough, but a 15k salary increase would have been very unlikely Why would I hate the fact that they make Larin a DP? I'd be happy for him as he's free to accept to decline. I hate MLS so much that I've been a fan and following it until 2 years ago. I don't hate MLS I will agree with that. MLS ambition (correct me if I'm wrong) is to be a top league, right? So how can you do that when you have Orlando mishandling Larin the way they did? Wouldn't you say that it sends the wrong message to young talented players out there that are good enough to get signed elsewhere to not consider MLS? Where you see my criticism as anti-MLS, it's really about pointing out that there should never be a Larin 2.0 and MLS should do what it can to be attractive to future young domestic prodigies. The teams you named gets that and I agree with you, Orlando doesn't, that's my point. Again, I agree. Orlando should have let Larin walk or pay him but they did neither, they wanted cash with no regards to the player's value or career, that sends the wrong message to other talented players out there. Or they could pay him his just value. Money talks and MLS has the mean of it's ambitions. Personally, as I said many times, the league is holding itself back but that's a debate for another thread.
Excellent point. Too bad that when I called out the front office at Orlando for their questionable competence in this file and handling of the Larin case I was so quick to be made fun off. Orlando comes across as "Amateurs" not MLS. I doubt other clubs as you said handles Larin this way At the end of the day, it's a business relationship. Even if Larin instigated the break down of the relationship, it's hard to not see it from his perspective when he's being offered only 15k pay increase for all his done for the club and the money he helped generated. The agent, understandably wasn't too please either
Read the links I posted and perhaps we'll talk. Until then...not worth breaking it down for you as it's very clear through those links options is one thing but how you apply such option vastly varies from one league to the next
I think I was pretty clear in my long post. You can't generalize but have to view these contracts on a case by case basis just like FIFA and CAS does. Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes it goes another. MLS overall use of those clause isn't the fundamental problem, it's that in the specific case of Larin, Orlando was clearly wrong and abused their power towards the player which is against FIFA standards. Even you must admit that a 15k increase for Larin is comical. That's the distinction I've made in my previous long post. The problem here isn't MLS as a whole but Orlando specifically. If you look at past judgements, the ruling are against the clubs, not the leagues. However in this case, with MLS being a single entity holding all the contracts a similar ruling would affect the whole league not just Orlando. That explains why MLS did what they did to have Orlando go along with the transfer. Orlando's action could have cost the league big time here. It's in the league's interest to make sure that such situations don't happen again. MLS shouldn't be allowed to be put in a difficult position because 1 front office doesn't seem to have a clue of what they're doing. According to Tenorio of ESPN, Orlando was willing to go all the way with this to FIFA courts, no wonder MLS stepped in to put an end to it. A big league like MLS can't have that. That's what I'm saying
And yet you started this thread making that exact claim, as have others since the Larin saga started, both in this thread and elsewhere. That's the issue I (and I assume @PTFC in KCMO) have. The assumption that because MLS does it it must be wrong, even when proof is provided its standard practice in the sport.
The problem here is that the Borden character thinks it is smarter than everyone else. It refuses to acknowledge easily observed data. When the data provided does not match your theory, the theory must change. You do not ignore the data. So what do we have going on here? The Borden character claims that since Besiktas says that the options on Larin’s contract are invalid they get him on a free transfer, that this is to be taken at face value and MLS is in the wrong. This is the Borden characters basic claim. The rest of his meandering bloviating in this thread is irrelevant. Data was provided to prove this assumption incorrect. 1) the Camillo saga where Queretero tried this exact same thing and ended up paying a multimillion dollar transfer fee. 2) Besiktas paid a multimillion dollar transfer fee to Orlando after they said they weren’t paying a dime for him. 3) the simple fact that MLS has used this clause on hundreds if not thousands of contracts with no issue. This includes foreign players that you would think would know better if the Borden character is to be believed. 4) Manchester United just exercises their team option on multiple players just recently. For a normal person, this would be enough for them to say “damn, I was wrong, I will amend my viewpoint.” Yet here we are, the Borden character just ignores it all and keeps trolling along. It is pathetic. It is sad. It the best part is that the Borden character things it is the smartest person in the room. Laughable.