Since Friday the ball has been going back and forth between the players and the league. I talked yesterday about how the weekend went between what the players said on Friday and how the owners responded on Saturday. Well there was even more that went on yesterday as the owners went out and admitted they’d still play under the old CBA (duh, of course they would), and the players hit back hard late Sunday.

See on Sunday MLS president Mark Abbott claim that management offered $60 million in new money, but as we’ve seen lately it isn’t all about the money for the players – something the league hasn’t quite figured out yet. Continue Reading…

It seems as though the talks between the league and it’s players have gone from bad to not good to decent to positive and now to terrible. What seemed like a bright thing a couple weeks ago now appears pretty dark.

On Friday the players spoke out saying there no way a deal was even close at this point. With several going out of their way on Twitter and in some reports to make their thoughts clear (part of a bad player PR ploy, according to Match Fit USA’s Jason Davis). I won’t even bring up the Soccer365 piece that sounded more like propagada than anything else.

“We feel the league’s not taking us very seriously at all,” said Houston goalkeeper Pat Onstad, a member of the player’s union executive committee. “We’re pretty far apart at this stage.

But yesterday MLS president Mark Abbott went public for the first time in a while, explaining the league’s position on various labor issues. Now the ball is pretty much in the union’s court. From the sound of things the league isn’t ready for a lockout here and according to Abbott if the players aren’t wanting to play this spring it will be their call.

“We’ve communicated that the league doesn’t have an intention of commencing a lockout,” Abbott told the Associated Press.

Its coming down to one or maybe two big issues for the players here. Players want guaranteed contracts, option clauses and most importantly free agency. Continue Reading…

We all know the Collective Bargaining Agreement is coming close to it’s end and the MLS Players Union and league front offices are set to battle it all out. Well today we got some rough news from the Sports Business Journal (subscription based link, sign up for a free trail if you haven’t) that the players union is already talking strike if things don’t improve.

According to the report the league has already rejected the players proposal of guaranteed contracts and for the elimination of club options on players’ contracts. Those two items are said to be very key issues for the players.

Officials for Major League Soccer and the union declined comment. But sources noted that last week’s session was the first counterproposal by the league, and that there was still time for more bargaining. The MLS collective-bargaining agreement expires Jan. 31.

The counterproposal put forward by the league last week offered to raise the salary cap and address some of the union’s quality-of-life issues by increasing travel per diems and improving hotel accommodations, but the sides remain far apart on a host of issues, including the salary cap, workers’ compensation, guaranteed contracts, option-clauses in contracts and FIFA regulations.

One player-side source acknowledged that the league had offered to increase the salary cap and players’ salaries but called the proposed increases “a joke.”

No doubt the players do need increases in salaries, especially at the bottom of the pecking order. You just can’t tell me or anyone that making $14,000-$18,000 a year as a professional soccer player is really worth it and that it is enough to live with in markets like LA, Dallas, Chicago and New York.

From the sound of things the players are willing to strike because they are said to having nothing to lose here by doing so. Things are still in the early stages though so its just a lot of hardball talk going around right now between both sides. I still believe things will get worked out by the end of January when the current CBA runs out.

I think the players know the damage a strike would do to the league. More than likely the players won’t get everything that they are asking, we know that to be true of past negotiations between these two sides. I’d say they will reach some common ground before long.

We all know Major League Soccer has a battle going on right now between the owners/front office of the league and the Playes Union over the Collective Bargining Agreement that ends this year. We’ve heard that discussions are on-going at the moment and now some news is starting to trickle out about what each side is wanting in this round of discussion.

Today we’ve learned what the players are asking for at the moment thanks to the Sports Business Journal.

Two items, free agency and guaranteed contracts.

The first is the biggie folks. Free agency would totally change how things are done by the league and the players. First of all it would mean that muliple clubs could bid on a player when his contract is up, instead of the league handling the player’s contract to a certain club.

The guaranteed contracts portion is a little unclear since there are currently guaranteed or at least semi-guaranteed contracts already. My guess is the players don’t want to wait until a certain point in the season for their contracts to be fully guaranteed, they want them to be that way from day one.

I would expect that the league owners balk at both items. At the very minium they go for the guaranteed contracts but the free agency would totally change how the single-entity system works for the players and their conracts. I just don’t buy into free agency happening this time around for the players.

The players could striker over the issue if they want it that badly but I doubt it would get that far. I know none of us want a players strike after this season. That would be a killer thing to happen to the league.