By DAN KARELL
Major League Soccer quietly announced the rules and procedures to the upcoming expansion draft, which will take place on Dec. 10.
New York City FC and Orlando City SC will each make up to ten selections in the 2014 Expansion Draft as they build their rosters ahead of the upcoming season. The 18 other MLS teams are allowed to protect 11 players between their senior and supplemental roster. The supplemental roster includes players 21-30 in each squad, who’s salaries don’t count toward the team’s salary cap.
Designated Players are not automatically protected for the expansion draft, though if the player has a no-trade clause in his contract, they must be one of the 11 players protected. On the other hand, Homegrown Players and Generation Adidas players (provided they haven’t graduated from the Generation Adidas program at the end of the 2014 season) that are on the supplemental roster (roster spots 21-30) are automatically protected.
An interesting new wrinkle to the rules is that NYC FC and Orlando City “have the right to renegotiate a draft player’s salary (either up or down) without having to place such player on waivers or giving his previous club a right of first refusal.”
In essence, that means NYC FC or Orlando City can draft a player, decide that they want to pay the player a salary figure that the player doesn’t accept, and then the player is theoretically stuck in contract limbo.
Whether either of the clubs are interested in doing that is a whole different story. Interestingly, the rule existed during the 2010 round of expansion (Vancouver and Portland joined for the 2011 MLS season) but was taken out for the 2012 expansion draft (Montreal).
Another feature to the rules is that if either of the two clubs select a player who was on another team’s supplemental roster, the team that drafted the player must offer the player a senior contract for the upcoming season.
Clubs are also restricted in the amount of international players that they leave unprotected. “Clubs may make available a number of International Players equal to their total number of International Players minus three, provided that if a club has three or fewer International Players it may make available not more than one,” the rules read.
A maximum of two players may be drafted from one team. Once that occurs, that team is out of the expansion draft.
You can read more about the rules for the 2014 Expansion Draft here.
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What do you think of these rules? What stands out to you the most? Do you expect any Designated Players to be left unprotected?
Share your thoughts below.
MLS, to borrow a bit of a dated reference, is the soup nazi. Stand in line, be quiet, obey the rules to the letter, and you’ll get what you want, unless he decides otherwise. I don’t know what the equivalent of Elaine finding the recipes in the armoire would be for MLS, but I doubt it will happen during the next round of bargaining between players and owners.
I would like to say that altogether the rules are shady and very grey, we have a league that is growing every year. A league that is improving in quality .attendance ,talent and infrastructure. Academies are improving and teams are joining USL with players developing. Somewhere sometime TRUE FANS OF MLS who want a top class league with top talent stadiums and the.like are going to have to accept that the.powers that be are doing what must be done in order to make every franchise viable and up to par. Would leadership admit to mistakes? IM sure they would. Would they do some things differently? I bet they would. But guys stop and look at what Garner and company have built and are building. It’s fantastic IMO. When I read comments from foreign players they rave about the facilities etc. And personally I don’t want a league of four haves and twenty have nots. No parity would be the death of our league. Markets like LA and NY MUST succeed. In time I am sure things will level off. But some of you act as if in 19 short years we should be running like EPL. Give me a break. If Garber hadn’t manipulated and tinkered we wouldn’t be where we are now. I love MLS. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE SOCCER. And id much rather stomach some byzantine rules than be a struggling league that is irrelevant. And MLS is becoming more relevant every year. And I am happy with that. One day in a decade or so we will be a 28 to 30 team league that attracts world class talent and gets ridiculous TV money. And all of us should credit Garber and his shady rules for building it.
Your premise — that “shady rules” are a necessary element of MLS’s growth — is questionable. But even if strange rules have been, and still are, needed, that doesn’t mean that each and every thing that the league decides must be accepted, on pain of being drummed out of the TRUE FANS OF MLS corps.
I would like to say that although the rules are shady and very grey, we have a league that is growing every year. A league that is improving in quality .attendance ,talent and infrastructure. Academies are improving and teams are joining USL with players developing. Somewhere sometime TRUE FANS OF MLS who want a top class league with top talent stadiums and the.like are going to have to accept that the.powers that be are doing what must be done in order to make every franchise viable and up to par. Would leadership admit to mistakes? IM sure they would. Would they do some things differently? I bet they would. But guys stop and look at what Garner and company have built and are building. It’s fantastic IMO. When I read comments from foreign players they rave about the facilities etc. And personally I don’t want a league of four haves and twenty have nots. No parity would be the death of our league. Markets like LA and NY MUST succeed. In time I am sure things will level off. But some of you act as if in 19 short years we should be running like EPL. Give me a break. If Garber hadn’t manipulated and tinkered we wouldn’t be where we are now. I love MLS. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE SOCCER. And id much rather stomach some byzantine rules than be a struggling league that is irrelevant. And MLS is becoming more relevant every year. And I am happy with that. One day in a decade or so we will be a 28 to 30 team league that attracts world class talent and gets ridiculous TV money. And all of us should credit Garber and his shady rules for building it.
+1 Atta boy!
The renegotiation of contracts would be fine for both parties and creates flexibility but if a players contract is guaranteed then it can only be changed if both parties agree. That’s just basic law and has nothing to do with mls rules. As an example a player might take less money per year for more guaranteed years, that could benefit both parties and help with player security and the team for get salary cap relief..
This is so weird. MLS is a soccer league, which implies competition, and yet, They do everything they can to benefit some teams at the expense of others and hide/ change the rules as they see fit.
20 years in and MLS is still a full blown Mickey Mouse league.
Why do people put up with this sheat?
For starters, we are Americans… we actually have an incredible tolerance for this sort of thing thanks to the NFL/NBA/MLB/NCAA.
But don’t kid yourself. UEFA leagues do this stuff too and if you aren’t convinced, wait a bit. I think you’ll enjoy the implementation of “Financial Fair Play” immensely.
Why do some people feel that they absoltely have to understand every single rule? I am sure that the rules in other US leagues are just as cumbersome. I am a huge fan of the league and will follow this draft closely and I don’t fully need to understand all the intricacies. Just enjoy the games and support your local team (provided you have one). If not, then enjoy match-ups like Seattle-LA coming up with plenty of quality on the field and great support in the stands.
+10 Those looking for transparent and consistent policies shouldn’t look any further than their local rec league– you might find it there (if you’re lucky). When there’s big money on the table, you will always be able to find opaque and changing policies if you look hard at all. It happens in the big UEFA leagues, it happens in other US sports (half of this stuff is borrowed from the NFL and NBA), and obviously it happens in international competitions.
I agree entirely that it hasn’t distracted me in the least from the product on the field…. is anybody not enjoying these incredibly compelling playoffs?
Sorry, but the “everybody does it” argument doesn’t wash in this case. Even in the murky world of professional soccer, MLS’s rules, and their uneven enforcement and extreme malleability, stand out. There’s a big difference between not understanding all the rules, which applies to fans of every sport, and knowing (through the league’s own statements and actions) that the rules can be ignored when the league deems it necessary and new rules are made up on the fly. And the fact that the league (as opposed to individual clubs) does it gives it all an unsavory appearance. It’s one thing for big clubs to evade rules. It’s another thing for the league itself to act in an essentially arbitrary and lawless manner.
Exactly who is the “victim” of this “arbitrary and lawless” behavior and “unsavory appearance”.
The fans? If it’s not just the big clubs benefitting, I’m not sure how you make this case. Fact is, fans of RSL or SKC can very reasonably believe that their team has a chance to win the title in any year. Is this true for West Brom fans? Aston Villa? Fact is, only 3-5 teams maximum are afforded this luxury in most UEFA leagues, and it’s getting worse. They know this, and so they have devised FFP, which will put any farcical behavior from MLS to shame when it comes to compliance standards, I promise you.
One of the most important functions of these rules (which nobody disputes are very bizarre and generally reverse engineered to justify ownership decisions) is to keep top talent from choosing where they want to play if they join MLS. Particularly if they are coming from abroad, this will almost inevitably result in a “NY or LA” demand. Just look at the Jermaine Jones situation. The illusion of “rules and “allocations” is byzantine, but if we remove them, we might as well remove the salary cap too. Right now, these are controls the owners need, even if they are farcical at times. To say “we just went in a room and made a decision” might be correct (we all accept this), but it plays into the hands of top talent who would then say “well, go back into the room and come out with a decision that puts me in a Galaxy shirt”
no need for drafts in a soccer league. MLS is mickey mouse as long as it keeps this silly process.
Is NBA also mickey mouse? How drafts are handled should be an extremely small concern for a real fan
The diff between soccer and basketball is that the nba has no competitors. Soccer is a global game with multilple leagues compete ting for players. Therefore it’s important for their to be common p layer rights and that mLS treat players a certain way. Forcing a player to join a team is not how it’s done in soccer.
Wouldn’t it be funny if FIFA stepped in and fixed this crap?
The renegotiation policy is absolutely insane. How can the union accept that? The bit about supplemental players being offered senior contracts is good. Reminds me of the Rule 5 draft in MLB.
Remember when the dynamo dared anyone to pick up Brian Ching by leaving him unprotected…. How did that work out?
Ultimately it worked out fine, but only after a lot of headache for Ching. The expansion drafts can be a real pain the butt for teams and players. This league is all parity all the time.
Sepp Blatter would be embarrassed of his association with MLS.
Submitted for your opinion – a world where the normal rules of space, time, and player movement are constantly shifting – where playing fields tilt in mysterious and unpredictable ways – where invisible forces act to attract players to some locations and repel them from others. There’s a signpost up ahead. You’re entering . . . The Garber Zone.
Absolutely read that in Rod Serling’s voice. Well done.
“NYC FC and Orlando City “have the right to renegotiate a draft player’s salary (either up or down)… that means NYC FC or Orlando City can draft a player, decide that they want to pay the player a salary figure that the player doesn’t accept, and then the player is theoretically stuck in contract limbo.”
That is FUBAR.
+1
That seems really unfair to force a player to take a salary he didn’t sign for.
+1
Don’t agree with that at all. MLS is either single entity or not. In this case it is sort of single entity.
So now a new team can take an under valued/ under paid player and keep him underpaid. Plus take a fairly and get the rights by offering him less. Makes no sense.
Seems weight the Chicago Fire wouldn’t be upset, huh ?
spelling correct….should be weird
The rules are best understood and probably written by Chicago politicans. The rules are losely written to benefit whoever they decide and will be interpreted however they please and to benefit whoever they want. If the rule doesn’t accomplish change the rule. For instance the rules didn’t benefit MLS clout heavy rev owner Kraft so they rewrote the rule and interpretation to give him Jermaine Jones
It reminds me of the Pirates of the Caribbean (minus the cutlasses and pieces of eight), the code is the guidelines which Garber and his crew can reinterpret whichever way it is convenient.
Are you kidding me with these rules? You’d have to work for NASA to understand them!
#WeCanLandOnACometButWeCant
Expansion draft, LOL…
MLS, the league where the Don picks whether a player gets to play in Chicago or Boston…
Enough said.
^Yup.
It is what it is. It’s how we do things here, Ivan.
You go out of your way to bring this up every chance you get, and I am sure you have successfully complained enough to make a leopard wear stripes but I have to warn you, you’re in for some serious disappointment here.
I agree that we can’t just create a league from scratch and expect it to be the Premier League but the league could be more transparent and situations where the Commissioner decides which club gets which player or whether LA can sign Sacha for six months or whatever is kind of silly, not “necessary” and should be something we are looking to phase out. The goal should be to operate like a normal soccer league eventually, once conditions allow. And we are pretty close to that point.
Agreed, slow. I am not saying it’s the best as it has some ways to go. But persistent comments like Ivan’s (who just loves having a go at the way MLS does things) without the understanding of why we do things a certain way tends to be noise for me.
I also agree that the league has some FIFA-esque cloaks when it comes to how they make certain decisions. We haven’t been around too long but we’ve certainly done an expansion or two and I hate that there’s just no set way to handle those things…or how we want to do the playoffs this year. Yeah it ain’t perfect.
You don’t have to be anti-MLS to think that the league’s rules and procedures are, at times, utterly laughable. “It ain’t perfect” is a grand understatement. The rules themselves are Byzantine, and then they are often ignored, changed, or made up on the fly. At some point, the league’s basic integrity is reasonably called into question.
Point taken and agreed. It’s probably because it’s the same folks who have a go at the league for everything – that’s where I was coming from. But to be honest, when you look past that, the message is clear and this strange rule stuff is FIFA shady. It seems Don and Company have a few things to work on instead of getting all hot and bothered because JK is not dancing to their tune.
Waiting for “Stop Whining about Soccer in the US” to scoff at your criticism in 3, 2, 1…
LMAO!
Yeah, but one could also just as easily predict and count down to the scoffs that trigger Quit’s scoffs, no?
That’s a mouthful.
We can all agree the rules are byzantine.
+ 1…on the rules. 🙂
Are the actual Fire whinining, or just a blogger on SBI ?…..Enough said.