News: MLS Coaching and Front Office - News & Discussion Thread 2022

Or early next week?

 

Maybe they're bringing Gregg back?

 

60-90days?

 

It's not clear why the delay for the Crew. Lots of sources to the effect that Nancy is their guy and he's been house shopping in Columbus. It's not clear if Montreal would be owed any compensation or not but they don't seem to have started a search for his replacement. Maybe they will hire inhouse or something like that. Heck, maybe they try to filch Courtois?

 

MLS should just relax its rules. How much extra did Pavon get paid....several hundred thousand dls more than what was initially reported or a million more? That isn't going to bankrupt LA Galaxy. MLS certainly doesn't care about bankrupting a team otherwise it won't be putting a $1M dls fine on the Galaxy which I am pretty sure is more than what Pavon was getting "overpaid".

 

Its not about worrying that LA might have spent unwisely, its about the fact that they cheated with their roster building. How is that not obvious?

 

I wouldn't doubt LAFC and other teams will be found that they did or are doing the same. They can call it "cheating" all they want but the purpose of the salary cap, as everyone says here, is that teams don't overspend and go bankrupt like NASL did. LA Galaxy can over pay Chicharito, Cabral and Costa millions of dls, which they are, but they can't pay any other player several hundred thousand dollars more because it's considered "cheating". From a financial perspective which is the entire point of the salary cap rules it just doesn't make sense.

Has it been said how much they were really paying him than what was reported?

 

Because its cheating

 

*edit*
Pavon's salary in MLS was $1.2M but what was not reported was the loan fee. Loan fees or transfer fees are included in the salary budget to determine the designation of the player. LA Galaxy didn't report the $1.8M loan fee (according to transfermarkt). Player was paid under max TAM but adding the loan fee would put him as a DP.

MLS is really going to MLS lol. MLS won't bat an eye if a team like TFC spends around $20M on two players salaries but it's considered cheating if you paid a LOAN FEE for a TAM player. Make that make sense! MLS really needs to modify their salary budget rules. Simple fixes like excluding transfer fees/loan fees and completly excluding DP players from the salary budget would go a long way without spending more than what they already are. And without the need to cheat.

 

That's not the purpose of the salary budget. The purpose of the salary budget is to level the playing field and create competitive balance across the entire league. Wether people want ot like to admit it, most players would prefer to play in LA, Miami, NY, etc... Yes, Denver, Philly, Nashville, Kansas City, etc are great places to live. They don't have the Glitz and Glamor of LA, Miami and NY though.

 

Much like in NCAA football and basketball, I would be totally supportive of a liberalization of the rules allowing teams to pay players whatever they want. But if there must be rules, they must be applied evenly to everybody, otherwise you have a joke of a competition.

What I would say though, this system invites cheating, and downright encourages it if it takes 3 dang years to sort out.

 

Waiting for LAFC to be sanctioned by MLS for breaching the Salary Budget rules for their 2022 roster..........

 

They had 6 players making over $1M guaranteed. And another 7 making over $400K. GAm and TAM can only buy down so many under the Budget charge. Plus they shelled out a lot of GAM for Acosta among other moves.

 

Many times it has been said here that the salary cap is so teams won't go the NASL route. The salary cap isn't leveling the playing field, it is just not letting the ambitious teams get too ahead of the teams that aren't willing to spend. We call it "parity" but it isn't. It's just putting on leash on those that want to get ahead. Money is being spent, like Toronto paying over $20M on two players, but not allow to be distributed properly to raise the quality of the league as over all salaries indicate the league should have.

The players, and I assume you are referring to "name players", that do prefer to live in LA, Miami are players coming to retire and/or because they got offered the most money by those teams. If LA or Miami aren't interested in a player as much as that player wants to live in Miami or LA it really won't matter. But at the end of the day money talks. See Ronaldo possibly going to Saudi Arabia or any player that went to play in China. Offer them contract like those and they'll have no problem living in Nashville, Portland or even Toronto like Insigne.

 

It's not a Salary CAP. It's a budget. EVERY team in MLS spends above the Salary budget limit when the various mechanisms are factored in.

When MLS was first established, yes the salary budget restrictions were put in place to prevent a NASL style collapse. Way back in 1996, MLS or any outdoor professional soccer league surviving. let alone thriving was not a given. It was tenuous at best. I would say up until Beckham signing with the league, it's long term survival was a serious question.

You are assuming that Toronto, LAFC, Miami, etc. would spread out that $20M spend across their entire team. Without the prestige of the champions league, and the world spotlight that comes with it, many of the brightest and most talented players would require exorbitant salaries to play in MLS currently. That's not currently sustainable.

The bottom line is that no matter what any of the "fans" say, no matter what the esteemed media members say, MLS isn't going to suddenly "take the training wheels off." It's not happening. They are going to take the slow and steady growth approach that has gotten the league to where it is today.

Some, like yourself, believe that the "salary cap" holds the big spenders back, and keeps the "cheap owners cheap." You may be right on the first. I will say that it mostly prevents teams from simply buying or at least trying to buy success. Though this has never stopped TFC since they entered the league. It "forces" teams to have to be smarter in how they approach building a team. There's not one way to find success in MLS.

Would Messi and/or Ronaldo signing and playing for a MLS team help the league? Absolutely. Are they worth spending in excess of $20M/yr each??? I honestly don't know. Would that money be better spent on youth and coaching development? Would it be better spent bringing in 5-6 players making between $400K-$1M each/year? These latter two points, absolutely it would be money better spent long term.

To each their own.

 

This is a good interview:

 

Because its cheating. I really don't understand why the idea of a basic rule that all teams have to follow is so hard for you to comprehend. People think offside should only matter if there's actual space between players but guess what, its cheating to score from an offside position even if its by a toe.

 

Paying a loan fee of less that $2M which comes out of the owner's pocket and which adds absolutely no advantage on the field is not cheating. Spending more money or overpaying players which MLS teams do often on players doesn't guarantee success as much as anyone wants to assume it does specially the way MLS play offs are set up. LA Galaxy could give that extra $3M to Chicharito ($1.8M loan fee and $1.2M salary on Pavon) and no one will say anything even though LA Galaxy would be spending the exact same amount of money.

 

Except it literally is.

 

I would be surprised if the reported PA numbers weren't vetted and TAM/GAM had to be allocated to register the players. Also those take into account option years which are not guaranteed and then average the total compensation over the max length of the contract. So if Bale got 700k this year and escalates to DP level in future years, the PA reported number is the total possible compensation divided by total years, which is higher than his budget charge was for 2022.

MLS allowing them to be registered without adequate balance to buy them down would be bizarre, since it would be the league signing off on it. Now if there was money not reported by PA or "off books" compensation that's different, but just looking at the PA numbers and saying "they are cheating" is not a slam dunk.

MLS could just make GAM balances public or at least provide ranges and it would probably clear a lot of this up. I think there are a handful of teams that use all the roster mechanisms and many others that just carry GAM balances or choose not to use discretionary TAM etc. Besides LAFC has had many profitable sales abroad compared to most clubs so they have at least a plausible path to generating a large amount of GAM over the budget.

 

I'm not against the cap nor do I want it gone. But it definitely needs changes. I've said before, MLS teams bargain shop because of the way MLS is structured and many times bring in very mediocre foreign players because of it. That benefits the teams that don't spend on DP players, academies or anything really. That isn't parity as much as people claim it is. Just look at Pavon's case; a $1.8M loan fee plus a $1.2M salary already puts that player in a DP desgnation and it isn't breaking their bank. Outside of DPs, MLS teams really need to search and settle for the cheapest options out their which in turn hurts the over all quality of the league.

IMO, and not everyone go crazy because MLS won't listen to me nor read my comment, I think league quality could be raised even more with simple changes as excluding transfer fees and completly excluding DPs from the cap. Let the teams be totally responsible for DPs and whatever cap hit a DP has on the budget now throw it back in the pot. Those 2 things, IMO, will raise the quality of players that come to MLS. Better foreign players in MLS raise the overall quality of the league which in turn raises the quality of our domestic players which in turn prepares our domestic players who make the jump abroad.