COMMODORE MEDIA GROUP

America has produced some very promising soccer players in recent years, and its league, the MLS, is steadily growing and seems to have a bright future. However, there are many setbacks the league and Federation are dealing with, most of which are self-inflicted wounds that will never allow the league or the USMNT (United States Men’s National Team) to grow. The issue with the MLS would be the poultry salary cap and the unwillingness of the league to convert to a more European style system with promotion and relegation. The National team’s problem is the focus on MLS players that are miles below the young talented players in European leagues such as the Bundesliga (Germany) and the Premier League (England). 

The MLS salary cap has caused many teams to lose their talent due to the jail cell that it is. Atlanta United, after winning 3 cups in their short time as a team, was forced to let go of most of the team due to the low salary cap. This team promised to change the culture of soccer in America, but a $4.035m salary cap is not going to allow them to do that. To put that into perspective, the NFL’s salary cap is a whopping $188.2m, and for other soccer leagues, such as the highly regarded Spanish, English, and German leagues, don’t even have a salary cap. A salary cap is theoretically a good idea, but at this time the MLS is not in a good enough state to have a salary cap that pigeon-holes teams into selling players when they become too expensive. The only thing that allows teams to go over that cap is the DP rule that came into play when David Beckham transferred to the MLS from the Spanish league. This rule allows for a team to pay 3 players without them being included in the salary cap. To try to fix this, the first 20 players are counted on the salary cap and the others dont get counted on the cap. The Problem is those are the players who would be starting and take the bulk of the salary. If one would like to see the cap explained in more detail Tifo Football has an amazing video on it called MLS Salary Cap Explained.

While Promotion and Relegation is the norm in European leagues, that is not the case in the MLS. Promotion and relegation is a system in which each team plays together in one league with no divisions. If they are at the highest league, then all teams compete to win the league trophy, but if they are competing in a lower league, they are competing to get promoted to the league above them. The bottom 3 teams get relegated to a league below in this format, making the league more challenging since no one wants to go down a league. When they are sent down a league financial problems and players leaving forces teams to rebuild. Teams will no longer be able to get the best TV deals or fill the stadium as much as they did for the league above. Players often leave if they are too good for the league they get relegated to. This means attracting top talent will be more difficult as the best players don’t want to play in a lesser league. The change over to this format has been debated many times over the last few years. So, why hasn’t it happened so far? The answer is money. The league won’t make a profit right away and it would take time to make a profit from the lower leagues. Another problem would be the size of the United States. This makes travel for less fortunate clubs difficult. This could be fixed with regional leagues with playoffs for promotion. There would be 3 regional leagues split by time zones where winners of each respective leagues would be sent to a championship league that is below the top MLS league. This would make the MLS a lot more competitive through the challenge of trying to get every last available point and getting promoted. Players have to play well every single game or risk getting sold. This will punish teams for playing badly and will ensure that tanking for a good draft spot no longer occurs. The threat of relegation will incentivize teams to always play hard and want to win. This will bring the development of young American soccer players to an all time high.

So, how could MLS fix this along with other problems? The first and most obvious answer is getting the salary cap out of the league. They could then switch to a more free market way of allowing the teams to sign whoever they want like America’s biggest rival Mexico. Also an American/Canadian team has never won a CONCACAF Champions League. The leader in Champions League titles is Mexico with a free market. So, if they switch to a more free market that would allow teams based in New York, LA, Miami, and Atlanta to bring in top-class players,  making the MLS more competitive and win a few Champions Leagues.

 Another problem is the way academies are handled. Young talented players in America don’t stay in the country because they have to pay to get in. This is the complete opposite everywhere else. If a young player is good enough to get in they will do anything to help that player succeed. For example, Barcelona found Lionel Messi as a young boy with a growth disorder and took him in and paid for everything from medical bills to his school. The reason MLS doesn’t do this is due to the huge risk involved. Some teams will and have taken steps to change that, but for the most part this is still the case. This also slows development of young players in America, whereas the likes of France and England employ under 23’s in their national teams frequently, such as Kylian Mbappe (France)  and Jadon Sancho (England). Continuing to produce players in this manner would bring the league to the spot light and fix many of the problems as said earlier.

The national team also has its own set of issues when it comes to developing players, one of which being their clear bias towards MLS players. The Berhalter brothers are believed to be a big part of this with Gregg Berhalter being the head coach after being less than impressive as a coach in the league for Columbus Crew. Through the Berhalter regime a lot of MLS players that are average like Paul Arriola, DC United midfielder, and Cristian Roldan, Seattle Sounders midfielder, continue to get chances in the team when players like Timothy Weah, son of Ballon D’or winner George Weah, and Richard Ledezma, young PSV player in the Netherlands, hardly get any chances with the first team, if any at all. The American talent pool is the most talented it has ever been, but the current MLS bias is too strong to consider players in the Bundesliga and other leagues. This is starting to change with the masses on social media calling for players like Josh Sargent, Sergino Dest, and Duane Holmes to finally get the respect they deserve and start for the national team at the highest level.

The MLS will never succeed with the current path it is on. Even if it is just the salary cap it would do a world of wonders for the growth of the league and would make the MLS bias of the USMNT just a little bit more reasonable in the eyes of the fans.