San Jose shakes up the Rhinos

So...A team from another league can't talk to a player they are interested in? I'm a little unclear on the rules. It seems like clubs should be free to talk to whomever they want provided the player in question doesn't play for a team in the same league or on a team with a farm system agreement. So, what's the problem here?

 

Franky's in trouble!

It looks like Yallop has stepped on some toes in the "A" League.

This gives us a pretty fair indication of who Yallop wants in the supplemental draft.

 

Franky's in trouble!

oops! I forgot to paste the link to the corresponding story. What a mo mo!

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/sports/rhinos/0213story1_rhinos.shtml

 

Merged the threads.

 

I say screw 'em. Let's raid the rest of their roster while we're at it.

 

This is interesting. But according to MLS the only players available in the Supplemental Draft are players that have already signed with MLS. So neither goalie mentioned in the article could technically be in this draft.

 

If the same rule applies here in the US as it does in most other countries, it doesn't matter whether you're in the same league or not. An English Premier League team can't poach away a lower division player without going through proper channels.

Then again, things are rarely done in MLS the way it's done anywhere else in the world...

 

i'll put this in tomorrow's daily news thread (since it just turned up), but here's something now on how the negotiations are going:

Pat Onstad's a Keeper - Rochester Democrat & Chronicle


-jim

 

Here's my understanding of things. You can't be in the supplemental draft unless you've signed with MLS (McKinley Tennyson hasn't signed with MLS so he's not in the draft.). Pat Onstad is supposed to have signed with MLS and is on the list of players distributed to MLS teams of players available in the draft. MLS does not sign players to contract unless teams express interest. One can assume that someone (San Jose?) said "sure, sign him up." Except that couldn't be done legally b/c Onstad was already under contract. Thus, the tampering chargers.

As for why San Jose can't do this, it's simple. In previous years, MLS had an operating agreement with USL (which included the A-league). It allowed MLS teams to call up A-league players, draft them and USL goes money and exposure (and could intice players by saying "it's exposure and PT that could get you to MLS". But the richer teams (Rochester and Charleston especially) hated this. They had better players, felt they deserved transfer fees for their teams (rather than a fee that went to the league).

So this year, there is no USL-MLS agreement. The MLS office specifically told all teams to carry 3 keepers on their roster this year in case of injuries or national team callups b/c they won't be able to callup A-league keepers for coverage. It may be possible for teams to set up individiual arrangements with individual A-league teams but that remains to be seen.