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Three Designated Players Rule Good or Bad for the Crew?

MLS Now Allows Three DP Per Team

By Steven Nyeste

 

A lot of talk around MLS fans has been focused on the  inclusion of a third designated player (DP) rule. Incase you aren’t familiar with how the MLS contracts work, players sign contracts through MLS and are assigned teams.Players remain under a salary cap set for each team. The DP rule allows individual teams to sign a player over this cost, as long as the individual teams pay for money that is past the salary cap. Each team was allowed one DP player slot, with the chance to make a trade for another team’s spot.
The Crew had taken advantage of this when they first signed Guillermo Barros Schelotto in 2007. The Galaxy has two DP players with Landon Donnovan and David Beckham (perhaps you’ve heard of them).

 
According to this article at mlssoccer.net, teams each have two DP spots, with a possibility of buying a third for $250,000, with no possibility of getting a fourth.

Now, it seems obvious that some teams would love the DP rule (those with money) and some clubs wouldn’t (those that don’t). Columbus being a relative smaller market, I personally wouldn’t be a big fan of this rule. What MLS has been relatively good at has been parity and making most games competitive (unless you are Toronto with your impressive 0-5-5 record against the Crew). I would hate to see a “Yankees” like team emerge in the MLS.


Even worse are the possible thoughts of owners trying to cash in on players to make their teams better, when they can’t afford it. When the top MLS side brings in under 14,000 to opening day, and reportedly doesn’t earn a profit, a sup-par team can find themselves in some serious debt by ‘trying to keep up with the Jones’s’.

Does anyone remember the NASL situation? Superstar teams like the New York Cosmos existed and sure, they must have been exciting to watch, but not every team could be the Cosmos. True, the league had some other flaws (rapid expansion) that also contributed to their doom, but MLS has done a good job avoiding some of the pitfalls the NASL league had.

 
While in theory, having every team equally able to sign two DPs, and allowing each team the option to buy a third seems fair, there is a little problem. Every designated player would cost differently. A team could afford to bring in a super talented player and pay them however much they wanted, while another team's DP could me a more marginal player.
 
The only thing I really like about this new rule, is the extra money the teams pay for the third DP spot goes back to the teams without one.

I’ll admit my bias for following a relative small market club in what I just wrote. I almost guarantee you could find the opposite response from someone following a big market team. We will see what happens. Perhaps Les Wexner could buy the Crew and buy Messi?

 
What are your thoughts on the situation?


Next Up: Crew plays  against FC Dallas on Saturday.  Any predictions? I’ll take the Crew 2-1.

Tags: columbus crew, david beckham, fc dallas, guillermo barros schelotto, landon donnovan, ,