A quick update to yesterday’s post

So I have asked a number of people around the soccer community why is it that MLS and Real Salt Lake would be chasing Valencia (current 6th place in La Liga) when 1st place Barca will be in the states? Or what about Serie A 1st place side Inter Milan, or 3rd place AC Milan? Even Chelsea 3rd place in the EPL will be in the states in July, so why would MLS want to push a Mexican side (most likely Chivas)? The answer is simple SUM, Soccer United Marketing which is the company that has a chokehold on MLS marketing and commercial rights, and is run by CEO Don Garber(yes that Don). Similar to the chokehold that Don Garber and MLS have over the teams of MLS, nothing can really be done without their permission and since the MLS All Star match falls right in their lap, they control what is going on. This bothers me more than a little bit when SUM also owns the US rights to Barca but would rather book them in bigger venues than Rio Tinto, so they shaft the All Star game because, the team can’t do anything about it. So RSL and MLS fans will probably get stuck with another midlevel team because SUM says so, while fans in Seattle, Atlanta, New England, LA will all get a chance to see one of the top teams in the world this summer, the premier event of the MLS season the 2009 MLS All Star match will feature, most likely Valencia (which if they finish 6th won’t come because of European qualifying) or Chivas.

MLS is now 14 years old and with the recent announcements of Portland and Vancouver will soon have 18 teams, it is time that teams be given a lot more control over their operations, and that MLS’s Don takes a back seat. Each MLS side should be allowed run their own business. This can’t happen overnight but once the Adidas deal is up, teams should be allowed to sign their own jersey companies just like other leagues. It should be clear that Don has to remove himself from one or the other, if he wants to be Comish, then he should step down from the helm of SUM, or the other way around. With just one man running all the operations of both the league and all other commercial decisions you get what the “Don” wants and nothing else. That simply keeps the teams of MLS under the thumb of one powerful man, so when you get stuck with a team that nobody will care much about playing in the All Star match, instead of one of the top teams in the world, you will know the reason why. Thanks for nothing Don.

Coming Later

Later today I will be posting my comparisons of the RSL keepers and defenders with the rest of the Western Conference.

OFF MY SOAPBOX

This entry was posted on March 24, 2009 at 9:13 am and is filed under The soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.