MLS Players Union calls TAM financial injection 'counterproductive'
Major League Soccer recently announced it will inject $32 million into the league via two $800,000 payments per team in Targeted Allocation Money, making an effort to spur more acquisitions of high-quality players. While the investment opens up new possibilities for roster-building minds to tinker with, the MLS Players Union sees it differently.
MLSPU executive director Bob Foose admitted that while the union is "certainly happy that MLS is spending more on players," there are still concerns about exactly why those funds come with strings attached.
Namely - why wasn't the salary cap simply increased by $800,000?
"I think that the TAM funds should have simply been added to the salary budget and clubs should be allowed to spend them as they want to spend them within the context of how each club approaches building a team," Foose told reporters. "At this point in the league it's just not necessary. I think it's counterproductive to be so micromanaged and so complex."
The complexity comes in what the funds can be used for. It's not just $800,000 in player salary, to be used on a higher-quality, big-money player; those funds can also be used to circumvent Designated Player rules and, ultimately, replace players in key positions within a team's roster.
"Despite the way it's explained, this money isn't limited solely to players above a certain salary level because it allows for buying a player's salary down," Foose said. "And it also means that other allocation dollars and other budget dollars that might have been spent on players at that level can now be spent on players below the level."
He added, "The reality is that some players in that process will be replaced by higher-priced players. That's sports. That's no different than it is anywhere. If we were to take an extreme example, if MLS were to decide tomorrow to implement a $12-million salary budget, there would be guys who would lose their jobs.
"But guys understand that. What they want is to be paid what they're worth."
Foose suggests that the league begin to "trust the teams" instead of imposing new financial rules to maintain parity across the board.
"The teams know what they're doing," Foose said. "Dictating to them how they do it, for one, it implies that there is one size that fits all, which I think is just wrong. Secondly, teams don't have as much opportunity to try different ways of constructing teams to figure out which is the best way. They're trying to lock teams into a common system and I don't believe that's the best way."