The MLS 2015 season will start as planned.
Friday’s season opener in Carson CA, between Los Angeles Galaxy and Chicago Fire will proceed, and the remainder of the opening weekend’s fixtures are also going ahead. The Fire players had flown out to the West Coast in anticipation of a settlement being reached prior to Friday night’s match.
DC United’s CONCACAF Cup second leg with Alajualense tonight is set to proceed with the Costa Ricans leading 5-2.
The issues that caused the dispute centered around Free Agency for players and the salary cap. As a last ditch move yesterday, MLS offered the Players Union free agency for players who had served ten years at one club and were over 32. That offer also contained a provision that limited salary increases for free agents at 10%.
That offer became cynically known as the Brad Davis rule, as the Houston midfielder was the only existing player who would qualify. As that offer became privately rejected and publicly ridiculed, the league reduced the numbers to eight years and 28.
A later offer of 7 years service at one club and being at least 27 was reportedly floated on Wednesday.
Now it seems that the parties, who negotiated deep into last night, have been able to conclude a deal. News of a deal began to break on twitter at 19.24 ET.
An increasingly influential group of journalists began to tweet the news. Simon Evans of Reuters and World Soccer Talk then quoted RSL Keeper Nick Rimando as saying that the ‘deal is done’ just before 17.30 pm ET.
Rimando confirmed it shortly after in his typically quirky way by tweeting two words “Play ball”
Rimando is one of the Players’ Union representatives in the CBA talks.
The deal does not seem to have been unanimous. According to Ives Galacerp of Soccer by Ives, seven teams’ players voted against it.
The seven Sporting KC, RSL, New York Red Bulls, NYCFC, Montreal, FC Dallas and Colorado are a mixture of low and high budget sides suggesting the split was not decided by the larger clubs ganging up on the smaller, or vice versa.
Evans later reported that ‘Free agency deal is 28 yr old after 8 years in league I am told. Salary cap up, min wage up.’
This means that any player over 28 is a free agent once he has serve eight years in the league.
Also See
Editorial: MLS silence on CBA has backfired
Op-Ed: Sorry MLS but the logic of “Bosman” is irrefutable, especially in a free country
