MLS Commissioner Don Garber (left center) and MLS Players Union Executive Director Bob Foose (right center) shake hands after the joint announcement from the federal mediator’s office in Washington, D.C.(Jose Argueta/MLS)

There will be no players strike happening anytime soon. Major League Soccer and its players union agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement on Saturday. The sides agreed to a new five-year deal.

The deal was reached just a few minutes before the teleconference today.

Many of the details have no been made except for the length of the deal and one vital piece regarding free agency.

There will be no free agency but instead what is being called (for now) a player re-entry draft. Basically it will help out of contract players be able to move around the league a little easier.

Once more details come out I’ll post them here.

A positive sign ahead. A teleconference has been called today for 1PM ET to discuss the CBA with Don Garber, Bob Foose, and mediator George Cohen. The AP is reporting that is will be a new five year deal.

I’ll have more later on the new details of the CBA.

I seriously was hoping my next CBA story would be my last, the one where the two sides came together and all were happy. Apparently that won’t happen anytime soon. The news is getting worse and now the strike is getting moved up a few days to Monday.

Indeed the days are getting darker here as Monday approaches. My guess is the players moved the date of actually striking up to Monday in case they do come to a deal before the start of the season on Thursday.

Word has it its really coming down to the issue of free agency.

“There’s no way the players are getting free agency — no way,” a source close to both sides said to Steve Goff. “These are stubborn owners and they are not going to budge on this one. There is a deal to be done out there, to avoid a strike, but the players have to realize [free agency] is off the table.”

I wouldn’t be shocked to hear if the players aren’t budging on maybe one or two other items too right now.

I’m all for people standing up for what is right and what they want but at some point they have to realize when the battle they are fighting isn’t doing any good at all. Both sides need to be reasonable but more importantly they need to work together to reach an agreement here. It seems like that is something they aren’t even close to doing right now.

The players need to go back to negotiating instead of demanding things while the owners need to loosen up a bit and work towards something positive here. I still think the owners have made all the concessions that they’re going to make and for all we know they could be reasonable items. The players are backed into a corner and striking is nothing more than counterproductive at this point.

I did see an interesting proposal from someone who’s been on the inside of things in the past. Peter Wilt posted his thoughts on something the two sides could agree on here. I’m okay with some of it but I still think the free agency issue is one the owners will not move on at all here.

All I can say is right now I really don’t want to talk about this issue on here until Monday (or before if something does get reached). I still feel like in the final hour a deal will be reached but even getting to that point is already putting a strain on the league’s fans.

This is good…I mean really good. Honestly seven minutes wasn’t long enough.

I do believe this is the first time an owner has actually stepped up and spoke out on the CBA issue in Major League Soccer. The LA Times sat down with LA Galaxy boss Tim Leiweke and discussed the lack of respect the owners are getting right now from the players.

“Here’s our issue, and I’m speaking on behalf of AEG,” Leiweke said in an interview with The Times on Monday. “We have spent to the tune of $300 million on soccer. We have spent money on facilities. We at one point owned six of the 10 teams to keep the league alive.

“I don’t even know how to react when I hear the players now saying that we have treated them poorly and they’re going to strike. The fact is, the Galaxy isn’t going to make money this year. There are only a couple of [MLS] teams that will make money this year.

“It’s not like this league is a work of completion. It’s not like we have accomplished what we have to accomplish to be stable and to know we have a great future. It’s not like we have reached the potential of a soccer league in this country.

“So when I hear them talk about striking and shutting the league down, I’ve got to tell you, they’re going to lose us when they talk like that.

“We do this out of passion. If this were a business, we would have quit this 10 years ago.”

“It would have been easy for us to quit over the last 10 years,” he said. “There were five different times we could have called it a day. But we didn’t. We fought through it.

“So for them to suddenly threaten that they’re going to shut it all down, I’m a little amazed at the lack of respect they show for the commitment that we all have made to get the league to where it’s at today.”

I’ve read and been told in the past AEG was one of the few owners that actually wants to make concessions to the players and based on that I would imagine they were one of the owners this time around that was at the center of making those concessions the league has talked about.

I’ll admit, I’ve been waiting for Leiweke and AEG to speak out on this issue. Its not secret that they along with the Hunts and the Krafts saved this league a while back from going under. Thankfully they aren’t about to quit on the league either even with this on-going issue.

There will certainly be some folks today that see the disrespect line and will run with it in support of the players. I loved that Leiweke talked about the league and the sport in general not reaching its full potential here. The players have to know that too. I kind of wonder too if the players even realize what the owners have put into this league at this point.

Leiweke said that it’s basically up to the players here, which is something we’ve been saying for a while. But like he said at the end of the article, its ridiculous and it needs to get done and be over here.

You all may not know it but the league is preparing to possibly use replacement players this year if a new CBA can’t be reached by the start of the new season. Keepin’ It Real has the video proof to prove it (really creative stuff here).

Let’s hope it doesn’t go down this path though, seriously. Players, owners get it done.

Ah so we’re finally getting a sneak peak at the new Major League Soccer website. No longer will it be MLSnet.com as the new URL will become MLSsoccer.com. Sure its a longer URL but a better one I believe. MLSnet never sounded like a good URL to me but then again “Major League Soccer soccer” won’t sound too good to some either.

But a new look is much needed and the amount of new content including blogs, more video and better coverage is just what this league needs.