promotion and relegation*

We are against MLS McSoccer. We are sick of a league that protects owners from themselves.

League owners the world over dream of NFL system. Supporters, accustomed to a situation in which owners are expected to build better clubs with their support, do not. I am on the side of supporters.

The NFL has talked about hiring animal cheerleaders. Are they any closer to doing it? Seriously, you think supporters will allow them to take their power away? European supporters I've spoken to, without exception, can't understand why we tolerate anything less, even after I try to explain the anti trust exemption that baseball got from Congress that started us down that path. What could be less free market.

All the open soccer leagues in the world, put together, crush all three operating American football leagues, and three recently bankrupt ones, in every aspect.

Again, NFL is small compared to the world of open soccer leagues. The fact that the EPL is close to the NFL in a country with a small percentage of our market speaks volumes.

That's fine. But why waste a FIFA sanctioned first div status for it? Apply the NFL system on it. Insulate your domestic super league, shield it from international competition, and enforce mediocrity to produce parity all you want, but please don't waste our first division on this experiment. I want to send our strongest clubs into international competitions, not debilitated clubs whose quality is managed by any league in the name of parity, whilst shielding owners from the risks that their first division entitlements don't cover.

You fall on the side of billionaire owners. Protecting businessmen from themselves cannot be a function of any league. Their irresponsible spending is not my problem. Let individual owners decide how to spend and raise their money. Get back to me when even one of these clubs goes under. I won't wait for you to get back to me when an entire open soccer league goes under - because it never has. Stop screaming about all the debt they are in like it's the end of the world. Somehow, they manage.

Fear it. Some of us really believe that a system that controls quality of play from the league level, enforces mediocrity to achieve relative parity, and is permanently entitled to first division status takes away from the heart of the game, and is responsible for transient fans and passionless matches. The organization is a group of fans that is fed up with a group entitled businessmen giving us crappy soccer, and then blaming us for not being passionate.

OK businessman - we have a league in a sport that is played by more kids in our country than any other. We lead the world in World Cup ticket sales. We sell out meaningless friendlies held by these doomed European clubs.

Yet our league gets the tv audience of a PBA match. Their average attendance records were set 14 years ago. Could it be they adopted a model that may insulate owners from every possible risk, but delivers a product that stinks?

Problem with the business model, perhaps?

We are sick of MLS McSoccer. If these businessmen are so responsible, maybe they should go into a more stable, recession proof business. We're sick of McSoccer.

OK, non idiot non fan of the NFL. You might like a league that is artificially governed from the top to produce relative parity. You may be OK with the fact that our clubs are seriously handicapped in international play because of it. You might just have a big heart for the owners.

EPL produces some of the best soccer the world has to offer. What right is it for you to take it from them, and call it irresponsible? Yet, that's what you are arguing for here in the states, assuming that our owners too will go into massive debt, and you will think they are irresponsible.

Look, open leagues in Italy, England and Spain all made it through the Great Depression and a war that decimated their economies and population.

They are still here today, and despite the crazy spending sprees of irresponsible owners, they will be here tomorrow.

Personally, I hope Man U's spending catches up with them, and they at least drop out of the top four. That will be the system correcting itself, not you screaming about their irresponsibility, and placing stupid controls on our league to protect us from their mistakes.

 

Where are all these capable teams going to come from? You have yet to answer that question.

 

100% dead on. What made you so reasonable?

MLS prides itself on protecting owners from themselves, enforcing parity by mandating mediocrity, all in the name of jamming soccer into a closed league model that has failed it in every preceding incarnation.

Making squads better sounds like a much better goal to me. Unless we're not supposed to be able to tell a good squad from a bad one here in the back woods of world football.

 

Still, you're left with McSoccer. MLS assigning a few more star players to clubs that need them, in cities where their ethnicity fits the demographics.

Why does a league that runs like a chain of movie theaters need a FIFA first div sanction, not to mention be entitled to it permanently? It doesn't. The clubs we're sending to international competitions are not the best that owners and supporters can put on the field, they are groomed to perform evenly with the other clubs in their league.

If they are not going to make use of the pyramid to let owners and supporters produce the best clubs in the country, Let's save the FIFA sanction for a pyramid in which performance is rewarded, not managed. Let's stop wasting it on McSoccer

 

You guys are creeping me out with your underpants talk.

Here's how it works, abridged, in layman's terms. The only thing we're rethinking is giving any concessions to MLS, who'll probably try and hold their clubs captive, and threaten to take their balls with them.

THE TRANSFER

F I R S T Y E A R
• Third and fourth division pre-season play-in tournament
• Promotion and relegation begins between third and fourth divisions at the close of the season
• Third division clubs promoted at the close of the season to fill out second division to twenty clubs as needed
• MLS abolishes squad size limits and salary caps, allocations, and defines transfer windows

S E C O N D Y E A R
• Second division clubs promoted at the close of the season to fill out first division as needed

T H I R D Y E A R
• First division begins relegating bottom three clubs at the close of
the season

BASIC CONSTITUTION

• Current USL-1 and MLS clubs shall be granted initial bids to their
current division
• Current USL-2 and PDL clubs shall be granted initial bids to third or fourth division
• An individual or may invest in/own one club
• Each league shall have a governing board composed of one representative from each club.
• These representatives shall change annually with the composition of the leagues
• Each league shall set minimum stadium and pitch requirements
• Salary caps and squad size limits prohibited
• Foreign nationals admitted to leagues based on national team appearances.

Have at it.

 

oh, and here's the league structure we support:

THE LEAGUES

F I R S T D I V I S I O N
• Composed of exactly twenty clubs
• Each club plays a home and away match against every opponent.
• Bottom three finishers relegated to second division at close of season
• Top finishers receive bids to CONCACAF Champions League
as allocated
• Playoff structure TBD

S E C O N D D I V I S I O N
• Composed of twenty clubs
• Top three clubs are promoted and bottom four are relegated at the
close of each season

T H I R D D I V I S I O N
• East and West leagues of at least ten, but no more than twenty clubs
• Top two clubs are promoted and bottom four are relegated from each
league at the close of every season

F O U R T H D I V I S I O N
• Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, and Southeast leagues of up to
twenty clubs each
• One promotion from each league at the close of every season
• Rules for admittance into fourth division TBD

 

You still haven't said where all of these teams are going to miraculously appear from. There aren't that many professional teams in the United States. Maybe you'll have to give a city a (GASP) franchise.

Also, the fact that you're using PDL as a fourth division shows how flawed this is. You're gonna have the fourth division made up of teams that use college players? C'mon now.

 

You speak of this "we", yet no one else here seems to be on your side.

when asked about membership of your group- you refuse to give details, or discuss where this "we" acts.

Was there a group that met up to write the goals and ideals of your group? or was it just you?

Please stop with the "we" when it is clear you are speaking only of yours views.

 

That sound you hear is a cultural reference flying over your head.

 

so you agree people would come? the soccer would be better? and people would become fans of the MLS.

and you don't think with better players that the clubs would do better on the interntational level. I have stated that they need to free up clubs to spend how they desire, and adding those players would do it.

Here is my summary of what you just said above.

WOW, that makes sense, but it doesn't include pro/rel so I will refute it anyways.

 

and right now we are at 34 Pro clubs. That's not even enough to fill your first 2 levels, and many are better suited for the 3rd or 4th division (based on no salary caps). So in 3 years we will have 46 more clubs. where will all these clubs come from? go to? where will they play? where will they get their players from? etc etc etc

 

Your "plan" still does not fill in the blank in number 2.
1) introduce pro/rel
2) ???
3) large league of pro clubs

You have at least around 100 teams and at most around 160 teams, where are those 160 teams coming from? Currently there are a total of 34 professional teams in the top 3 flights, add the 5 PDL-pro team's and you're up to 39 (actually 38 as the Whitecaps Academy team would likely drop out in your system). At best you're still more than 60 teams short of the minimum. Where are the rest of those 60 teams going to come from? It won't be the PDL, the majority of those players are unpaid college based players on summer vacation.

Where is the stadium infrastructure coming from, or are the majority of these teams going to play in high school football stadiums?

Where is the talent coming from?

Where are all the owners going to come from?

 

I like that his site has this up for the table:

http://soccerreform.us/standings3x.html

cause the 2009 season is long over, why do you only show it through like june?

 

Look at this some leagues aren't afraid of pro/rel:

http://www.hometeamsonline.com/team...HOOLIGAN&t=c&s=soccer&p=newsstory&newsID=5894

 

Congratulations to the Florida Elite Soccer league.

I bet they have enough teams to support Pro/Rel. Thank you yet again for a worthless reference that has no bearing on the topic.

 

why is it worthless? it proves that pro/rel has to start at the bottom and work it's way up.

 

the guy has zero concept of reality. we are talking about a country that has a 2nd division that was almost going to collapse. That has had 90+% of teams self relegate or go bankrupt in the 2nd division. That while is played by many youth, is probably the 6th most popular spectator sport. There is no way we can even compare to Nascar at this point. His fantasy has WAY more demand for soccer in the US than is realistic at this point. There is nothing to indicate this, infact we have many indicators that say we have no where near the demand we need for his fantasy pyramid. I mean we are all aware that there are soccer clubs in almost any major city in the country. from PDL to NPSL to Cosmopolitan/Pacific Coast Soccer Leagues and other independent leagues. If there were huge communities of people willing to support lower division soccer in america, why do 100s of teams play in front of dozens of people (mostly family) every weekend? Where is the demand to support such a business structure... I mean my god 160 teams? Oh...summer friendlies? 60k people show up to see some of the greatest players on the planet and all of a sudden 4th Division teams in Alabama could start drawing fans? To be honest, the only thing like this system that could ever be possible is American football. If you had some kind of gigantic system where NFL plays in the 1st division, and NCAA in the 2nd/3rd and at the bottom are the big HS clubs...well that might work. You could probably get support at each level and people would love it, but they love the closed leagues already...they just love football. It has nothing to do with the pyramid it has everything to to do with the culture. Again, this is coming from someone who doesn't even like NFL or american football, but we all have to be realistic at some point.

We all want things to get better in this country. Academies, more teams, more independent control, more spending, working with FIFA...no one is against this, but we have to be realistic. We need to figure out ways to make our league better. I have long suggested a system where 10-20 smaller club owners get together and buy a MLS franchise and set up a league and the winner would get to play in as an MLS team for a year and then play the winner of the 2nd division at the end of the year to see who stays up. It keeps our system in place, insulates the owners who bought full franchises, but opens the game up a bit to some new/smaller ownerships and gives new markets a try. This may not be a perfect plan, but there are ways that we can keep working to grow the game and make it better instead of wasting out time with these fantasies that will never happen.

 

Pro/rel in reality could happen in 10 years, the problem is that MLS has 4 teams that are making a profit and the rest get money from the expansion fee of new teams.

Now if MLS had no salary cap which I don't know why they don't implement it...the whole league system would change.

 

You don't understand why a league with 4 teams making a profit doesn't get rid of the salary cap? Really?

 

yea what kind of profit...

 

Good for them. Somehere in either this, or another pro/rel thread I stated that IF pro/rel were to ever happen in the US it would start from the bottom up.

It sounds like this league has enough teams, and enough stability to start it.

If it works for them, other leagues of similar nature will catch on, maybe one in GA, TN, SC, NC.

Then all those leagues with pro/rel can decide they want to form a "super league", and have pro/rel between the super league and their "state" leagues.

And if it works, and is popular enough, and takes the best players it will take over the MLS.

That's fine, that's free enterprise working, and building from the bottom up.

But trying to start with MLS and mandate it from top-bottom will never work.

 

And the irony is that your fantasy is no more a reality than his.

 

Actually the salary cap, and it being so low is what is hurting the league more than anything.

Top American players won't stay cause there is no money.
Top Foreign players won't come cause there is no money.

Without top players, the level of soccer will never grow. Fans will continue to choose to watch other leagues, and the MLS will be a glorified Minor League for European teams.

Take the shackles off the owners, let those who want spend the money on players, and watch the stands fill, the TV ratings go up, merchandise sales increase, etc ,etc, etc.

 

How did unlimited salary caps, best players in the world, etc. work out for NASL? I'm sure they are the premier league in the world right now, right? Oh... Wait... They collapsed in 1984 and set professional soccer in this country back by over a decade...

The only thing keeping MLS from collapsing is the salary cap right now. If teams were allowed to spend freely you'd see an arms race start happening and there just isn't the revenue capacity for soccer for that to happen in the US and Canada right now. Heck, there isn't even the revenue capacity for that kind of thing in Europe right now. Are there any major teams in Europe that aren't hemorrhaging money right now?

 

There's a difference between raising the cap and getting rid of it.

You dump the cap entirely you'll just create a league like major league baseball.