By Ridge Mahoney
The U.S. Soccer Federation has followed through on its threat of calling in replacement players after it failed to reach an agreement yesterday to mediate a dispute with the U.S. national team players association.
Attorney Mark Levinstein, who represents the national team players, said the players were unwilling to surrender their right to strike through November as a condition of mediation. He refuted rumors that the two sides had reached an agreement in principle Thursday that would have resulted in national team players reporting for camp in Southern California this weekend.
''They proposed to meet with a mediator but only if we would agree not to strike for the next year and no new terms of an agreement were discussed,''ásaid Levinstein. ''In the meantime, we would agree not to strike, they would agree not to lock us out, and the players would continue to be paid what they were paid in 1999. That's all it was. There was no discussing of changing any of the other terms of their proposal to the players.''
Since 1999, the players have been paid between $2,000 and $6,000 per game for qualifiers. Each side has proposed a new schedule of bonuses.
Levinstein says the players were willing to agree to not strike for some period of time into the spring but wanted something in return from the federation. The players' conditions included:
— reinstating retroactivity — which U.S. Soccer made clear through various channels the players knew it was going to do;
— paying the players for the upcoming qualifiers under the terms of the increased bonus schedule the federation has already proposed;
— agreeing to a no higher-and-lower clause (ie. the players agreed to not come back with an offer higher than their highest offer, and the federation agreed to offer no lower than what it has previously offered).
Lewinstein said the talks collapsed when the federation rejected his proposal with these conditions of mediation.