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My view MLS should increase the salary capPosted: Wednesday May 28, 2003 3:18 PM
By Mike Woitalla, Soccer America Shortly after MLS players formed their union, I'm watching a game and thinking they must have called a strike and I'm watching the replacement players. Of course, that wasn't the case. The players have made it clear that striking isn't on their agenda. The poor quality of so many of the early games -- the first 15 gave us a depressing 2.27 goals per game -- is a product of the terribly low salary cap. We are watching teams that are rebuilding because they have shed experienced players they could no longer afford. Some have gone to other MLS teams. As the season goes on, teams will play more cohesively, and we'll see some better soccer. But how much better? MLS ditches "expensive" players such as Ariel Graziani -- San Jose's leading scorer -- and replaces them with Project-40 teenagers or college products, most of whom couldn't get playing time in any other top-flight league. It's nice that promising teens are getting experience, and in some cases they turn into players I'd pay money to watch. But MLS owners' reluctance to open their wallets just a little more is threatening to turn this into the Major Developmental League. So parsimonious is this league that coaches who create exciting, winning teams must dismantle them regularly as their veterans' slowly increasing salaries put the teams above the $1.73 million cap. And coaches who are trying to turn a loser into something better have far too little cash to work with. Usually a coach integrates a couple of newcomers into his lineup, surrounds them with experience and watches them mature. In MLS, too many teams are built around journeymen and players too young to enter a nightclub. Prime MLS benefactor Philip Anschutz, who has committed millions to soccer stadiums -- along with Lamar Hunt -- also owns thousands of cinemas. He doesn't think people go to the movies because they're impressed with the buildings, does he?
Mike Woitalla is executive editor at Soccer America magazine.
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