Other Team Discussion Thread Vol. 12: Spoilers Within

Maybe I just don't read well, but I cannot find anything in the roster rules that exempts former MLS or USMNT players from allocation, even if they are DPs.

 

Exactly. And what people are frustrated by is the idea of exceptions to rules which are not themselves explicitly codified in the rules. The fact that there exists a precedent doesn't excuse this -- in fact, it has exactly the opposite effect, in that it gives the impression that MLS has a history of skirting its own rules.

 

Isn't that what I said in the part you quoted?

 

So there are rules that aren't explicitly stated in the rules?

 

I can't help that people don't pay attention to MLS precedents. And I can't help that people forget about these situations when the exact same situations pop up again and are treated the exact same way. People keep looking at the roster rules page as if that contains the entirety of the MLS acquisition rules when it is essentially a Cliff Notes' version that exists for the general public's use.

 

Yep. Just didn't want you to think you were alone. Most Calvinball explanations cover situations where MLS has taken action that either isn't covered in the rules as published or that are open to interpretation, but the Dempsey situation seems to be covered explicitly, and yet is being ignored or overridden.

 

In as much as the rules are guidelines for teams to follow. What is posted on the MLS website is an abridged version that gets modified every year and is very much a generalized text so that fans can make better sense of how the league works (which it obviously doesn't do a good job of when fans can't determine which rules apply in which scenarios and which rules supersede others).

 

I guess you could there are rules and then there are RULES.
Like the sad joke on the golden rule: he who has the gold rules.

I actually remember this coming up before, probably when Reyna returned. So, the "DP exemption" doesn't surprise me.

And screw Dempsey. As far as I'm concerned, it's still a swing and a miss.

asitis

 

I'm sorry, but I think this is absurd. It has nothing to do with people not paying attention to precedent -- I can't imagine how you got that out of what I posted, when I explicitly referred to people noticing prior events. What it has to do with, instead, is looking at the published rules of the league, seeing repeated events that are inconsistent with those rules, and thinking "wow, they keep not following their own rules." You may find such a conclusion odd, but I think it's a lot less odd than to see such an event and think "well, they must have some double-secret rules that we don't get to know about that make it all OK," since that's a conclusion based on absolutely no tangible evidence whatsoever. Still weirder would be to see multiple such events and see those events as actual evidence for secret rules, as if absence of evidence is evidence of presence.

 

How long have you folks been following this league? And you're still lamenting a lack of strict roster rules -- not to mention a lack of transparency? I just don't think it's worth it. We all know this sort of thing can happen and does happen in MLS. I'm not going to lament that. I'm just going to worry because I know United isn't the sort of team that can make a signing like this happen. Rules are for the little teams. Not the big boys. That's not a value judgment, just a statement of MLS fact. I'm tired of United being a little team.

 

Except Dempsey didn't sign with the league.

He didn't conduct contract talks with MLS; he conducted them with Seattle and agreed to Seattle's terms. That's a pretty big distinction from a player (like Pearce or Bocanegra) that signs a deal with the league first.

 

Because people keep looking at what MLS posts on its website as if it is the end-all, be-all source of information when it comes to these sorts of things. It's not. It is a generalized review of roster rules. It doesn't cover anything in explicit details. For example, how much can a homegrown player make and still be considered off-budget?* How long do teams have a player's rights after making a bonafide offer?**How much of the transfer fee does a team get?***All of those things would be useful information. All of those relate to player contracts, as well as roster rules, and yet none of them are described with any detail on the roster page. Why? Because MLS has deemed such information to not be of enough importance to fans.

People want transparency from MLS. I get that. However, what they get is translucency and somehow expect that it will one day change. That I don't get.


*No one knows, and it would certainly be of interest when it comes to players like Zardes, Fagundez, or Yedlin
**Apparently forever, as TFC had to give us compensation for Nelsen even when he returned as a coach
***Max $650K in allocation money, which actually was posted on the 2011 Roster Rules page but was removed from subsequent versions

 

Except my understanding is that there is no "Seattle" in that all player contracts are with the single entity league. I think that's where the Calvinball stuff starts because MLS is supposed to be a unified whole, except when an owner-operator somehow operates independently of the League under rules which are not widely known or explained by the League after the fact.

 

I could really care less about the league rules, as long as if DC wanted to sign Michael Bradley and bring him in they could do it without being held hostage by another team in the league.

I think this is awesome for the league and American soccer although for fans of some teams it will be a bitter wake up call...welcome to life as Norwich, perpetually out of the championship picture...which is exactly how I would have felt if this had happened 2 weeks ago.

Hope is a beautiful thing.

 

This pretty much sums up my sentiments on this transfer. We're just another team in MLS that exists to ensure an easy win for teams headed for the playoffs.

 

I'm sorry but this is total bullcrap. You either have rules that anyone can examine and are applied to everyone equally or you don't have rules at all. There isn't any middle ground here. This is the kind of thing that just makes me want to quit MLS; this wouldn't happen in any other professional sports league on the planet.

 

The going out and signing who you want part happens in most every other soccer league in the world

But I assume you mean no other league on the planet would administer rules differently based on the team for which the rules are being applied. To which I say;

WHAAAAAAAAAAAA?

Have you paid attention to other parts of the planet. IIRC correctly both the Mexican and Brazilian confederations have changed rules of competition on the fly in recent years to prevent big historical clubs from having to play in the 2nd tier. Didn't Argentina do it too? And Scotland was seriously considering restructuring all their leagues to get Rangers up faster. How about the advantages for Barca and Real Madrid in La Liga? I can't even imagine what happens in leagues that are out of the international spotlight and where major teams are supported by the political, social, or military elite (really, you think the top teams in China that are run by the military industrial complex don't get every domestic player they want?). Even in the EPL, Man U gets treated differently than other teams, whether it's the failure of the FA to sanction SAF for intimidating officials, or the easy granting of work permits (admittedly, not a decision made by the FA).

Oh, wait, you said any other sports league. NBA officiating????

 

For fun, I tried looking up the roster rules for other sports leagues (NBA, MLB, and NFL) on their respective websites, and you know what? Bupkiss. You get rules of the game, but not how teams acquire players. Maybe it's better that way.

 

Somewhat. MLS owns the contracts for all its players. But MLS doesn't negotiate all the contracts. It has the final say on them and signs off on them, and can (and has) rejected contracts it deems detrimental to the club. Due to the sensitive nature of DP contracts (i.e. the fact that the club itself will be paying any surplus salary and not MLS), they can and have been exceptions to quite a few rules.

 

How do you figure? I'm no Rangers fan -- don't much like them at all -- but Rangers was very loudly upset about the recent restructuring proposal because it meant the promotion they'd won this past season wouldn't occur and they'd have to spend another season at the bottom.

Could you be more specific about rule differences that are advantages for them?

 

It's one of the reasons why I don't pay attention to any of those sports leagues.

 

FWIW, Spurs think they've been negotiating with MLS -- they just announced that they've "reached agreement with Major League Soccer for the transfer of Clint Dempsey."

 

De jure, how about the differences in revenue sharing from league TV income that sees those two teams get almost 50% of the entire league TV rights revenue.

De facto, they are seen to receive many benefits from the league (and referees). They pretty much bent over backwards to not hand Mourinho a normal punishment for his eye-gouging of Tito Vilanova, which ended up giving the man cancer (joking people, just joking, I know it wasn't Mourinho...at least not on his own)

It was my impression that the restructuring of Scottish football would have removed some divisions, making Rangers' assumed climb back to the SPL a year shorter. You in a contrary mood? Q'bert himself repped the post.

 

That's absolutely happening, and it really sucks, and there's no question that Barcelona and Madrid get an unfair advantage from it (especially Barcelona, since Madrid doesn't need the money, since they can just have the Spanish government print money for them whenever they need it); but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the rules of the league, or rule differences to favor them, since the clubs sell their TV rights independently.

While I was as furious as anyone you'll find anywhere with Mourinho's actions and the relatively minor backlash, the problem in mapping this to the rules of La Liga is that it didn't happen in a league match.

Re: favors from the referees, that's religion, and there's no point in arguing it.

No, not really contrary; I just remember that Rangers themselves were adamantly opposed to the restructuring plan.

 

And with a 20K stadium we will never be a big boy again. I have no problem with Seattle getting Dempsey as a DP. Hell, if they want to overpay that ex-Rev hoser 8M a year (more than freakin Beckham) more power to them. But I just don't see DCU being able to keep up even with a new stadium.