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MLS adds second Designated Player slot per team, clubs allowed to buy third slot

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Major League Soccer has just announced that, effective immediately, all teams will have two Designated Player slots and all teams will be allowed to purchase a third Designated Player slot.

No, this is NOT an April Fool's Joke.

According to the new guidelines, teams can have two Designated Players on their roster, with each player counting $335,000 against the salary cap. A third Designated Player slot can be purchased by any team for a cost of $250,000, with that money being dispersed among all teams that don't have three Designated Players (a third DP would also count as $335,000 against the team's salary cap). Also, teams can not trade slots, so the maximum any team can have is three Designated Players (The New York Red Bulls will be given a $70,000 allocation as compensation for the Designated Player slot they traded for in 2007).

The changes take effect immediately, meaning teams can theoretically add as many as two more Designated Players before the end of the current MLS transfer window on April 15. Teams that sign a Designated Player during the summer transfer window will only be charged with a $167,500 salary cap hit for the 2010 season for each Designated Player they sign during that period.

So what does this all mean?

It means teams can theoretically have three marquee players taking up $1 million of their salary cap come 2011 (and as low as $500,000 for 2010 if three Designated Players are signed during the summer), but they will have to pay $250,000 for the third slot. That money will be placed in a pool that will be dispersed to teams that don't have a third DP slot. So in theory, if half the league's teams signed three Designated Plyers, then the other eight teams would share a pot of $2,000,000, or $250,000 each that it could use as Allocation Money to spend on signings.

That change is a clever compromise to help appease the teams that are unlikely to sign multiple Designated Players.

The news also means that big-spending clubs such as New York, Los Angeles and Seattle can start getting ready to bring in multiple high-profile stars, which will not only improve the quality of the league, but also force all teams to dip into the Designated Player market. MLS teams will be hard-pressed to justify not using any DP slots when some teams are using as many as three.

What do you think of this dramatic change? Already imagining the players your team might go after? Think

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I find the hatred of the Sounders and petty jealousy of their fan base to be wildly entertaining. Keep up the good work.

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  2. This is actually good news.

    This is particularly good for markets like New York and Los Angeles.

    This is a very interesting development for MLS and US Soccer. I am going to go so far to say that it could have a major impact on the global soccer market. The American contribution to the sport globally is our business practices for running sports leagues.

    If our teams can beef up their player ranks and improve the product on the field, we could start seeing MLS as a destination for top talent. The challenge will be winning the Champions League, doing well at the Club World Championships, and possibly competing in Copa Libertadores. (Wouldn’t that be great).

    Until we start winning some International tournaments, MLS will always be considered 2nd rate.

    Great news.

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  3. How old are you? I was expecting a “nanny nanny boo boo” somewhere in there. I mean really? All you have to say is your team sucks, who do you root for?

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  4. chicago fire for giovani dos santos 21–then zidane(38) and pavel neved(38). I know those guys are old, but only a year older than blanco, and I guarantee they can run longer

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  5. jesus f*ing christola!!!! this report got 242 responses. Everybody seems to have their panties in a bunch getting all wet with dreams of big names coming over. The only problem is that most owners in MLS (kraft, kroenke, wolff, hunt, hunt, etc) are penny-pinching mofos when it comes to MLS. I hope big names come to some teams (sea, tfc, la, hou, ny), but will that be enough to keep some teams afloat? Maybe some teams ought to be penalized “for not investing” when others do.
    Also, I dont think the added level will make more folks want to watch in the 2nd or 3rd year….we need to put them on display in the international level and gain some measure of admirability from that international play…this is the international context that get viewership of games into the millions…we need to get into copa lib.

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  6. Wrong. Donovan is a DP. The new DP rules get rid of the granfathering in that the league did to allow Donovan to not require a DP. So LA Galaxy can only have 1 more DP not 4.

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  7. so if i understand this correctly…..
    RBNY loses its second DP spot (which is currently vacant) and receives $70,000 in return? is that correct?

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  8. I think this is great news and could really help improve the quality of the league if it’s utilized efficiently. Assuming teams will get three, or even two, will they find impact players?

    We have seen that the league is stagnating or at least treading water, and that the players are growing impatient to have salaries and other benefits that the league can’t really afford because of their status. If this new DP rule is used well it could boost the league and get the players more at the next CBA. As it is now, I think we just dodged a huge bullet.

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  9. I’d love to see Raul come to MLS, but I have to think he will never play for another club. I expect him to take a coaching or ambassador role at Madrid like Zidane. My list of possible DP’s:

    Thierry Henry

    Patrick Viera

    Clarence Seedorf

    Jozy Altidore

    Sol Campbell

    Juninho

    Gilberto Silva

    Claude Makelele

    Juan Veron

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  10. Not really. Any DP salary above the allotment comes from the investors. If you’re already losing money on overhead (say you have a bad stadium deal) that money is just more down the drain. Three DPs may count as a million against the cap, but could well cost a couple million in cash to the investors in the club. Technically, any team in baseball can spend like the Yankees and Red Sox, but in reality….the rich get richer and everyone else deals. Look at the EPL- it took 500 million pounds of Roman Abromovich’s (stolen) money to keep Chelsea where it is. ManUtd is an equivalent amount in the hole, Man City is competitive because of a random multi/billionaire. Portsmouth is bankrupt despite a seventy million pound TC payment.

    Do we want a league like the nfl, where relatively poor clubs like Pittsburgh and New Orleans are competitive, and the NBA, where Cleveland and Oklahoma City can play, or MLB, where the Yankees and Red Sox have win, and smaller markets have to save for a decade to make one run and disband? The EPL or La Liga are great, if you’re a ManUtd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid or Barca fan. No one else has a shot at winning on day one.

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  11. That’s not true. It will be VERY difficult to have three DP’s on your team taking up over a million dollars of your total team salary cap (plus paying another quarter million to the other teams) without sacrificing the rest of your team to some extent. Now if you could somehow sign three DP’s and have them all be great, there might be a little validity to what you are saying, but what are the chances of that since teams have had a problem even getting one DP to be worth their salary?

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  12. I could see Raul and Henry to RBNY and Riquelme and a quality striker to pair with Beckham at the Galaxy. Although if this happens, unless some teams use a DP on some centerbacks MLS games will have hockey like scoring totals.

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  13. I prefer RSL manager Jason Kries approach. He’s built a complete team but isn’t afraid to go after foreign finds (Soborio). A smaller market like Salt Lake City can’t really afford a Beckham type player without sacrificing other important positions on the field like defense. No, we RSL fans don’t hate LA, we love them just the way they were/are. I hope they land an older big name replacement for Becks.

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  14. I’m curious whether the Sounders had forewarning that this was going to happen when they announced that they had come to terms with Blaise Nkufo. I was wondering how they were going to afford him. I guess now I know.

    Suppose they may have just assumed that if the second slots were not made available, there are still 11 unused slots floating around the league that they could trade for.

    In any event, it seems like it would have been smart of them to keep that announcement under wraps before this change was made official..

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  15. no more guys in their 30s. MLS needs to go to south America and scandanavia countries to bring in good quality plays in their 20s or less. Players like Javier morales, Olave, Hutardo, Montero, Joel Lindpere, etc…

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  16. I am confused…does the DP threshold change from $415,000 to $335,000?

    Are players that were at the non-dp amounts (i.e Taylor Twellman and Shalrie Joseph bot that $415,000) now qualify is DP players?

    If they don’t qulaify is DP players, what is to stop teams from classifying them is DP players so they take less of a salary cap hit?

    Please clarify IVES

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  17. Having 1-3 top clubs and then a middle class isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The league suffered because there wasn’t an official ‘top dog’ last year that beat up on everyone.

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  18. Only read through half the comments, damned last posts last read.

    MY take in this is it makes it easier for two events to happen:
    1. Start spreading the News, Henry’s comin to NY.
    2. Donovan can now be replaced by a DP, where if he’d left w/o this rule, GaLAxy would have been F-d without Beckham AND Donovan for a while. Now, Arena can replace Both of them and have a full complement of 3 when Beckham returns.

    And I think THAT was a big contribution LD made when he came to the CBA table.

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  19. Good point, not the first time I heard it, but good point.

    However, IF teams had three I think you see a difference. That being said, who can afford to have 3 and use all that cap space.

    So where does having two while other teams have zero put us ? You can’t possibly think that the teams not spendind as much are better off all the time….

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  20. riquelme,raul,morientes,ze roberto,henry,owen,deco,seedorf,shevchenko,palermo are somewhat realistic just b/c they have all been rumored in the past

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  21. if NYRB got 70k because of the old dp slot then chivas has two dp slots, b/c the one they traded away no longer exists

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  22. I agree. In addition to this, adding a third DP to be bought by the team, not only allows further help to the struggling teams in terms of allocation money being passed to the poorer teams; the increase in attendance can help as well.

    Remember the Beckham effect (travelling circus). All teams benefitted from LA signing him, as every team’s attendance/ticket sales number grew for the LA game. This affected the weaker teams’ bottom line. So if 4-5 teams sign the Beckham and Blanco type DP’s, you would see an increase in attendance for 1/3 of a “weak” team’s home games.

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  23. um, yeah, I’ve noticed it’s a big problem for the Pats to get 60,000+ fans in there. I don’t think the fear that too many people will show up and it’ll suck to get out of there is stopping anyone from going at the moment.

    Plus, if more fans were going, then there would be more interest and they’d bring the train service back.

    I’d love it if there was a downtown stadium, but it’s only easy to get a new stadium built in or near Boston if you’re a team like the Sox or the Pats… If only the Revs could have as easy a time with the local politicians getting a new stadium built as those other much more established teams had when they tried it. (were you around for those attempts?)

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  24. Not necessarily.

    Think about it this way. Many teams around the league have players that are being paid in the low $300’s range. If you simply subtract one of those players for a DP, then you improve play.

    On the player’s side, it actually “hurts” the top paid non-DP’s for that same reason.

    One thing that I would have added to this rule is a clause if the DP is domestic. For example, 3 DP’s max, but if one is a local (domestic) talent, then they do not affect the cap (or a much reduced hit). It would be kind of like a mix of the GA/DP rule.

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  25. Haha excellent! Get in there, never thought of that!

    Never going to happen with our tight wadded GM and clueless manager, plus it’s not everyone who wants to come to America and play at RFK – looks more like a prison ground today..

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  26. Hopefully this is why DC United has underspent this offseason, I believe they are well under the cap right now…

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  27. They still have the same shot…everybody has a salary cap, everybody can sign DPs. Every team has the same opportunities, what you do with it makes the difference.

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  28. it’s not just the small crowd. It’s actually more that Foxboro is in the middle of nowhere and it sucks to get to, and if there were a large crowd you’d sit in traffic for 3 hours. so yeah, it’s dreadful

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  29. Why should NY get an allocation for the extra DP slot? By that logic, MLS better get to work giving RSL back their permanent international roster slot that was only a youth spot when it was traded. Then they can give KC an allocation for it as well. I guess asking for a little consistency (especially when it comes to the large market vs. small market teams) from MLS is a bit much…

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  30. So essentially, you believe that MLS doing anything to allow teams to spend more money to bring in better players will lead to an NASL-like collapse of the league?

    I guess soccer hasn’t made any strides in this country, huh?

    Reply

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