League bends rules on yellow cards
Players always have, and always, will complain about referees. But even a mediocre referee will earn some grudging respect if he is consistent in his decisions.
Major League Soccer referees striving to be consistent must deal with an unforeseen obstacle: The league’s own policies.
As it debated the punishment for Crew midfielder Todd Yeagley’s raking foul on L.A. Galaxy midfielder Mauricio Cienfuegos, the league put the finishing touches on a more liberal suspension policy for yellow cards.
Yeagley was fined $1,000 and suspended two games for ripping open Cienfuegos’s shin with a wild tackle May 26 in a game at the Rose Bowl.
(Ironically, the National Hockey League handed the same punishment to Colorado’s Claude Lemieux for a vicious foul; Lemieux earns $1.26 million a year. But a $1,000 fine is the maximum permissible under the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement. Yeagley makes about 3 percent of Lemieux’s salary.)
His reputation as a clean player apparently saved Yeagley from a longer suspension. MLS had considered banning him for up to five games.
Yet Yeagley’s foul did not warrant a red card from referee Tim Weyland, who must have been peering into the stands looking for Hollywood starlets. A subsequent foul six minutes later, a seemingly routine foul that ordinarily probably would not have incurred a yellow, did produce a second caution and thus an ejection.
“As a defender who has committed bad tackles in my time, I know an awful tackle,” Galaxy defender Robin Fraser told the Los Angeles Times. “I mean, that was brutal. It was so late and so high, I really, honestly thought it should have been a red card.
“That sort of thing needs to be penalized very, very harshly.”
In effect, Yeagley received a one-game suspension, since he’d have to sit out one game anyway due to his ejection.
Weeks earlier, when Dallas midfielder Leonel Alvarez received two yellows in a game that he started with four, he sat out only one game. The four yellows carried over to his next game and when Alvarez duly received his customary yellow, he sat out the subsequent match.
Mainly because of Alvarez’s perfect record — at least one yellow in every MLS match he’s played — the league has changed its suspension policy for accumulated yellows. The original rule called for a one-game suspension after five yellows, then a two-game suspension after three more cautions.
The new policy is the same as the old for the first five yellows, but a player’s slate is then wiped clean and he can receive five more yellows before incurring another one-game suspension. If he then picks up three more yellows, he sits out one game.
Most of the Alvarez yellows were for dissent, and it’s true that international players — both U.S. and foreign — are conditioned to constantly snipe at referees. But by granting players, in effect, more yellows to work with, the league has encouraged fouling — at the same time it is urging referees to be strict with bad fouls.
MLS may have granted complainers like Alvarez more bickering room, but it has also offered those who incur yellows in a harsher manner greater license to hack.
What the league should do is assess points for yellows and reds, and enforce suspensions based on points, not the card count. (Reds, of course, would retain a mandatory one-game suspension.)
A caution for a foul or dissent might be one point; a serious foul would be two or three points. A “Yeagley” could be whatever “grade” is deemed appropriate during disciplinary review.
Two games may or may not be a fair suspension for Yeagley’s foul, but nailing a young player for $1,000 is excessive. Of course, since MLS pays all player salaries, it’s an easy way to save a grand.
Teams allowed to add two more players
Buoyed by attendances almost double what had been projected for its inaugural season, MLS has authorized expansion of team rosters from 18 to 20 players.
In the MLS revenue formula, ticket revenues are split 50-50 between a team and the league. MLS business plan projections estimated attendances for the first year at between 10,000 and 12,000, and the league is averaging 20,854 fans per game as of June 3.
MLS welcomed its 1,000,000th fan at the San Jose-Columbus match at Spartan Stadium June 1. Total attendance for the 49 matches played as of June 3 is 1,021,852.
The two extra roster slots are budgeted at $14,000 per player, based on a seven-month contract prorated at the annual MLS minimum salary of $24,000. Increasing the rosters by two such players adds $280,000 to the league’s outlay for player salaries (20 players at $14,000).
Teams wishing to make room under the salary cap must unload players by July 1. Players on active MLS rosters as of July 1 must be paid for the entire season, and that amount counts against a team’s salary cap, which increases to $1.163 million per team with the addition of two players.
by Soccer America Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney