US Players To Follow The Scent Of Money?

Ah, but many of them already do, or have tried. Donovan, for instance, was actually on loan from Bayer Leverkuesen back to the US league this past year, if I remember rightly.

But will Donovan stay? Patriotism only gets you so far.

My light understanding of the situation is that the best (most money-friendly) place to ply would be in England, and the requirements to get employed legally are extreeeemely difficult to meet. Factor in a shitty Euro and there's no money-push to join a European club...

Of course they should go. MLS maximum salary is around $275,000 per annum, and there are only a handful of players making close to that. Product endorsements can double that, and while Donovan and Beasley could make enough peddling Snickers bars to buy a few new fancy SUVs, they would be far better served financially moving abroad.

And just as I'm writing this I hear on the radio that Bayern Munich is offering about five million euros for Clint Mathis. The customary 10% to him puts more in his pocket than two years of MLS, and that doesn't count his salary and extras.

But setting aside the money issue, the quality and pace of play there helps a player improve considerably. Most of the US players in the World Cup aren't going to get better playing in MLS-- maybe they'll improve at shooting and dribbling, but not defending, or moving off the ball, or reading the game.

It's not that MLS is bad, really. MLS teams play around the quality of decent first division sides, and the best MLS teams could possibly avoid relegation from the Premiership. I'm happy to spend my money to support my team and to travel to see them, with the full understanding that we'll sell our best players. (I just wish our frigging megabucks owner would actually build the beautiful 25000 seat stadium in Harrison they keep showing us the plans for, rather than keeping us in the cavernous Giants Stadium.)

In any case, to the last point: today's kids who go to see Clint Mathis for the Metros might see him in the Champions League, playing against better defenders than Eric Dade or David Vaudriel. And they'll see an Eddie Johnson improving every game. I don't think it'll put anyone off-- soccer fans, even here, are aware of the global nature of the sport. It seems more like an incentive than anything else.

MLS teams play around the quality of decent first division sides, and the best MLS teams could possibly avoid relegation from the Premiership.

Hohoho. I have wound up Americans about their football before, and acknowledge that they got exactly as far as England in this World Cup, but oh dear no. The very best of the US side can, in some cases, just about get into sides that just about avoid relegation from the Premiership. If all of the USA squad made up an English team, I can't see them surviving, though I guess it's possible, and the MLS teams would be entirely out of their class. Bear in mind that there are several US players who have not worked out terribly well even at a mediocre level in England, and even their best are hardly among the best players at their comparatively lowly clubs.

It's a ridiculous hypothetical exercise, and totally a moot point, but I'd say the very good DC team from 1999 that beat Vasco da Gama in the Interamerican Cup (0:1 home, 2:1 away) were a far sight better than Palace were that year, and comparable to Barnsley and Bolton. But Martin, what I'm saying is the very best club team the US has ever had (and which included four of the defenders on the 2002 US team) might have gotten, say, 40 points off 38 matches, in a year that didn't feature much quality from the bottom third of the table. That's not anything close to a strong claim.

Martin, if you follow US soccer like Ben follows UK soccer, I'm looking forward to the continuation of this argument :-)

Surely it's as much an issue for MLS since they own the contracts? They've got a balance to find between making sure home-grown players can be seen playing in the US to grow the sport domestically, and alternatively, growing it by having top US players playing for recognised top teams. Both are required, so some will, some won't, I'd have thought. They can't afford to let everyone go, lest the MLS games become a tired rehash of the NASL, but they got to decide that in caes of conflict, is their priority the US team or the MLS as a viable domestic league.

There's no need to strategically choose between the two, as they are complimentary as long-term goals; however, the experience in other countries shows that players end up where they want to go.

A query for Benjamin though - my understanding is that there's a NY based tycoon who's bankrolling MLS and many of the teams; there's also the franchise owners of whom some have gone as far as to build dedicated stadiums (Columbus Crew I think). Yet they don't own the players' contracts. Is there any tension between these conflicting forces in the MLS? Are the owners accepting of the situation as they see it as the best medium-to-long-term strategy or do they want to own their major assets themselves?

I think the answer to the question of 'keep the players/let the players move overseas' is to ask the players where they would rather play. Some would rather stay, usually for reasons other than money (Eddie Pope, after France 98, turned down some attractive transfer offers because he was deeply involved with his initiative to get inner city kids in Washington playing soccer-- that seems to be going well, and word is he's ready to move now).

In any case, if MLS rejects transfer offers that are reasonable and realistic, they'll get punished for it eventually, as quality players will either move on a free transer upon contract expiration, or merely refuse to sign in the first place. MLS hasn't, so far, been a league of last resort, but the leagues MLS has been competitive with are Scandanavian leagues, and to a much lesser extent the English lower divisions, Mexico, and non-Old Firm Scotland.

Clint Mathis is a good example. There's money being made available to try to induce him to stay, but he's at the limit of what American leagues can offer him, quality-wise. With sixteen months left on his deal, MLS can sell him for a decent bit of money ($5 million or so), or let him go somewhere for nothing at the end of the 2003 season.

I don't think most Americans who are on the cusp of following MLS would be too bothered by the best young players moving overseas. Baseball teams have been signing players from overseas teams (as opposed to signing foreign players without team affiliations and developing them in the astoundingly complicated minor league system), paying transfer fees to do so. The player anticipated to be the first chosen in the basketball draft is a Chinese giant, and whoever signs him will have to pay a fee to his old team ('Shanghai Sharks'). The best goalkeeper in ice hockey, a Czech, is said to be moving to play in Europe next year. So none of this is unprecedented, and furthermore, it is utterly impossible to follow soccer in a serious way without being aware of the international nature of it. As long as MLS teams get an opportunity to play internationally themselves-- and word is that there will be US entries in future Copa Libertadores-- I think people will be comfortable with selling players.

Especially if the money is ploughed back into the construction of stadiums.

A query for Benjamin though - my understanding is that there's a NY based tycoon who's bankrolling MLS and many of the teams; there's also the franchise owners of whom some have gone as far as to build dedicated stadiums (Columbus Crew I think). Yet they don't own the players' contracts. Is there any tension between these conflicting forces in the MLS? Are the owners accepting of the situation as they see it as the best medium-to-long-term strategy or do they want to own their major assets themselves?

You've got the outlines of it exactly right. And yes, there is a tension. Philip Anschutz (Colorado-based, and is the guy buying the Millennium Dome, by the way) wants to build 25000-35000 seat grounds in key cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington) for soccer teams but also as concert venues. He is said to be supportive of professional development schemes for the teams he underwrites, and Metrostars (the team playing in NJ) have a particularly extensive reserve team and youth academy. He sees the development of players and the revenue from transfer fees as an important part of the financial structure of the league, and there is said to be tension between him and other investors as to the question of centralization. As things stand, money from player transfers do not go to individual teams, but to the central league offices, to pay for player salaries, administration, and what's left (not much I suppose) would be returned to individual teams in equal shares for operations costs.

N.B.: George Steinbrenner, the irascible owner of the New York Yankees, was asked to buy a team in his hometown of Tampa Bay. He seemed interested until he was told of the centralized business model, at which point he yelled "That's socialism!" and threw the soccer guys out of his office.

Doesn't George have any friends who own NFL teams? You never hear them complaining about socialism! (Actually, I'm pretty sure George is good friends with Al Davis, whom I've never seen in the same room as Kim Jong Il; you may draw your own conclusions).