What is Preventing USSF & MLS from Participating in FIFA Solidarity/Training Compensation?

MLS clubs have complete autonomy when it comes to the amount of investment, etc. in their academies go. WHen it comes to the single entity structure, the academies are the "Wild West." It can be a real point of differentiation as clubs try to gain a competitive advantage over the other clubs.

TFC had decided not to be part of the DA at all, which MLS was fine with.....................until next year. They've decided that they want to join now.

We want to provide incentives for clubs to invest in youth development and academies. We want to reward the clubs that are investing the most and developing young players of high quality. The lack of training compensation, etc. accomplishes the exact opposite. It means that the clubs that have invested the most and developed the most youngsters of high ability level..................are losing those players for nothing. They're not getting any return on that investment. If RSL loses their three best U19s from their academy this year without compensation (Booth already lost to Bayern, Soto on trial at Gladbach, and Ledesma trialling at PSV), why would they continue investing more and more? That's not what we want at all.

I'm not arguing that those RSL players shouldn't be able to sign with those clubs at 18. We want them to from a USMNT perspective. RSL just needs to be rewarded with training compensation payments, which Bundesliga-caliber clubs are willing to pay. They already pay those if they sign players from Belgium, Croatia, Poland, or wherever. Its not a ton of money.

And people need to read the column from the OP and others. MLS HQ isn't the primary problem here. The MLS Players' Union is the organization most vociferously opposed to training compensation payments.

 

TC can be into the low/mid six figures, depending on the age they sign, so as a % of a youth player's contract over 4 years it could be 10-50%. Someone posted that Pulisic's first raise was like from $2,000 a week to $4,000.

 

Yes, because they really need the money.

I wonder how much Andorinha, Nacional and Sporting CP are going to get.

 

I don't know how your numbers add up, but I'm going off of how, for example, De Bruyne's first team got tens of thousands of dollars, for a fraction of a percent from his move to Man City. I suppose the more often a player moves, the more TC they will accrue as each team takes a cut, but are you telling me that FCD would be getting 10-50 percent from every new deal that Booth (for example) signs?

That'd certainly be a bigger cost difference...

 

Philadelphia's ownership group is one of the proponents of a compensation system for players that leave once they turn 18 and pursue opportunities abroad. Earnie Stewart was initiating conversations about this topic behind the scenes (he spoke about this in STH meetings). He seemed confident that down the road something would eventually be worked out.

One would have to beleive that Vermes and the SKC ownership would be proponents of training compensation as well after losing EPB for nothing.

 

Link?

 

Whatever Sargent did with his local DA Academy, YNT time, and trials seemed to work out.

What would be best for the USMNT, would be MLS teams offering 3 year deals to 16 year olds but without club options. Then they could be developed and sold at 18. I feel like all this talk simply clouds the discussion of why MLS will only offer 5 year contracts (3+2). NYRB seems willing to sell mid-contract; but it hasn't happened yet. No American home grown has been sold. So, these HG kids could play in the league for 4-5 years, be making peanuts, and almost too old at that point to do much except sign a new MLS deal. Which is what you have seen with almost all the 22 year old home growns. Ahh...that must be it. Cheap, captured labor. Hard to feel sorry for them when the kids leave for free.

Why no USL team hasn't started signing these players and then selling them is another mystery. Is USL only allowed 1 year contracts?

 

But TFC couldn't be part of the USSDA. They're Canadian.

 

Nope. Vancouver has been part of the DA for quite a while now, and Montreal wasn't far behind.

TFC decided to do their own thing, but will join the DA next season.

 

You seem to be under the impression that MLS clubs should spend their money developing academy talent, and then just give those players away when Euro clubs come calling. That's your business plan for MLS? That's not how any club on planet earth operates.

Training compensation fees aren't a lot of money. They will just allow the clubs to recoup their expenses for developing those players. Its not even a profit.

 

Sargent went to a pay to play academy, so as far as I'm concerned they've already been compensated.

"No American home grown has been sold."

Matt Miazga.

 

The MLSPU complaint has been primarily been adding the training/solidarity payments would make the player more expensive, especially when they are signed on shorter term contracts (2-3 year). ie) a player making 80k a year and youth clubs getting back 10k in training compensation is significant money.

Especially when the player's parents put in thousands of more dollars for the kids to receive the training in the first place AND more importantly, the youth clubs do not have an adult team that a player can graduate to. They have to leave their youth club.

The next CBA ends in Jan 31, 2020. In the meantime, some changes are already happening. USL and PDL teams are connecting academies to the first teams and getting affiliate youth clubs. St. Louis Gallagher will be the interesting club to watch regarding future compensation as they also have a USL team. The NE Revs have started a program where they give 10k in scholarships to affiliate clubs when they sign a homegrown player who previously trained at an affiliate club prior to joining the Revs.

 

No, you have explained MLS's plan. I would simply offer these players competitive contracts. Ledezma wouldn't take a 2 year deal last Summer? If he had, he could be sold now. With MLS it is 5 years at $65K (but we only commit to three) or the highway. Most kids are taking the highway.

It is a huge decision to leave the continent for a profession at 17/18. Why are these kids doing it in your opinion?

Why MLS is developing Academy talent at all is good question. I would say maybe 3 clubs are actually doing it. Maybe 3 more would like to. A couple do everything but actually sell any players or play them. And 1 is so bad they can actually start a guy from Richmond Kickers and it is an improvement.

Again, you are right. MLS operates like nobody else on the planet.

 

What about Josh Sargent in all this? He never played for a MLS club. Are you telling me that if his agent filled in LSG as the place to send training compensation payments that the MLSPU would sue LSG? What's their standing for that? They're not an interested party in Josh Sargent.

Maybe some non-MLS amatuer club needs to take the money and let this be worked out in the courts because that seems to be the only way the PU is going to be forced to abide.

 

jeez, people like to pick nits. How about Yedlin? Ha! See!

Two guys in the last five years. Great, you are so smart. Really shows a robust pipeline of talent being developed and sold to better competitive environments! At this rate, we will have a whole roster of MLS developed talent playing in the Top 4 Leagues in the World, maybe even the Champions League! Whooo...oh but Miazga will be 55 by the time we get to 11 guys, so we will have to replace him...

Does the phrase, "the exception that proves the rule" mean anything?

Who besides the Red Bulls will have sold any American, much less a HG American, since the last World Cup? One, Yedlin. Now come up with another and then tell me that HG Americans get sold by MLS clubs (plural).

Oh, and please don't give me third string Mexican-American goal keepers that never played a minute in MLS and were basically transfered out of pity and a case of soda.

 

That is why this is coming up now. If Pulisic transfers, this would be the case, and the rumor last week started the discussion. Since all these players have left on a free and not moved yet, nothing has been tested.

 

I was just correcting you. No need to attack me. Of course Bill Hamid, the original HGP, went to Europe on a free at the end of his DC United contract. Several of ex-MLS players would have probably signed professional terms earlier. Fabian Castillo joined Dallas at 17, and other MLS academy players playing outside the US, Moises Hernandez, Micheal Seaton, Omar Gonzalez, Amando Moreno, Andy Najar, Shane O'Neill, Jorge Villafana, Klanz Frosse, Emerson Hyndman, Weston McKennie, Matthew Olosunde and Carlos Salcedo, so the academies aren't doing too badly.

 

Nice strawman.

It's like this. An MLS team develops a player thru their academy. They try to sign the player through a HGP deal. If the player doesn't want to be under an MLS contract for a long time (e.g has plans to go to Europe at 18), then that team needs to find a way to get value out of that player another way. Perhaps through signing at an earlier age, and then receiving a transfer fee. Additional funds could be acquired through residual solidarity payments.

HGP contracts may traditionally be structured in 3 yr + 2 club option-format, but there's nothing necessarily standing in the way of MLS teams negotiating a different format/contract with an individual player. There's nothing sinister about it, per-se. If FCD wanted money out of Weston's move to Schalke, they should've offered him a HGP contract earlier, and under terms that he would accept, as it seems DCU has done with Durkin, and NYRB did with Miazga and Adams.

The fact is, MLS is not a strong enough development league to entice every single player to stay there. Players who are great talents are going over for bigger bucks like Christian Pulisic. That will happen to every league except the Big 4, and even then, EPL money talks.

But these prospects are also going over because they know that they will have better long-term prospects at bigger European clubs because their development will not be drastically hurt.

And if MLS isn't providing a great track record of producing talent that plays in MLS then transfers overseas, then it's not the player's fault for leaving overseas at the first opportunity if that's what they want. That's why people are irrationally fixated on the progress of prospects like Carleton. Because they are canaries in the coal mine, and it's up to the club to find ways to get the most value out of their academies, rather than simply opine that 100 million dollar training facilities aren't "worth" the prospects that they're producing because they aren't making offers that are good enough...

 

TC is not just transfer dependent, that's solidarity which is a small % (up to about 5% of the transfer fee divided by years spent at clubs during youth). Training Compensation is what it sounds like, money to pay clubs that trained a player. It kicks in when a player signs his first contract and anytime they are transferred prior to turning 23. It is based on the investment the signing club would have to make in its own youth team to develop one pro player (roughly, it seems to be more of a league wide average). That money is then divided up among the teams that have the player from say 12-23 (or first pro deal). Teams at the younger ages get less money than older ages.

So when say an 18 year old free agent signs his first deal with a big Euro club they are supposed to pay all the clubs who held that player's registration based on how long and what years that player was registered with them. Last I remember it was something like €35,000/year after the early teens. So it could be about a €140,000 pool that needs to be paid out to sign an 18 year old to their first deal. That's roughly 25% the total compensation paid to the player over a 4 year contract.

 

You're not going to be able to sign many private academy players before they're 18 because most will want the option of playing NCAA soccer.

Also presumably high schools (I assume) and colleges wouldn't get solidarity payments.

I still don't like the idea of pay to play academies getting compensation.

Let's say PA Classics has 500 players of all ages. In the time Pulisic was there they would have taken $6.5 million in fees based on their published rates.

 

The TC rates are based on what Dortmund has to spend to produce one pro player not what PA Classics had to spend.

 

I get that.

But still, PA Classics didn't spend a penny to produce Pulisic.

 

It was all over calciomercato and football-italia

 

So the link would be in Italian?

 

OXI.

Calciomercato has an english edition and football-italia is in English