Nugget in Carlisle's Players-to-Europe Piece

I doubt he even knows it, but Jeff Carlisle's decision, or assignment, to write a piece for ESPN about players by-passing Major League Soccer (MLS) to take a stab at Europe is a timely one. More on that later...

Carlisle's article takes a "here's the problem" kind of approach. In his piece, the central question is whether promising U.S. players heading to Europe poses a problem or not. He doesn't get into the question of what we should do to keep said players, a discussion that will commence shortly in this space and others.

For the record, it's a pretty good article in that it lays out the debate pretty clearly. And Carlise does note what many view as the source of the problem: the crappy, sub-Subway, sub-McDonalds pay that players on MLS's developmental rosters, especially, earn upon entering the league. And, as he also points out, even players that enter the league after getting selected high in the draft earn comparatively little.

Most people who care to know this do, of course, but there was one thing in his piece I didn't know:

"The fact that the current collective bargaining agreement won't expire until the end of 2009 also serves to keep much of the existing salary structure in place."

I didn't know that, that thing about the collective bargaining agreement. Wow. That's a sticky wicket.

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