By Ridge Mahoney
The U.S. Soccer Federation has followed through on its threat of calling in replacement players, and at least in the first few hours, the players were declining.
Among those who told U.S. Soccer ''Thanks, but no thanks,'' on Thursday include Josh Gros, Brian Namoff, Logan Pause, Troy Perkins, Rusty Pierce, Henry Ring and Ian Russell.
According to a source, Coach Bruce Arena had drawn up a list of 40 players and 28 were invited to a camp at Home Depot Center that U.S. Soccer director of communications Jim Moorhouse said will start ''as soon as possible.'' Moorhouse said Arena will travel to Southern California this weekend after he fulfills his commitments at the MLS SuperDraft and NSCAA convention.
The federation began calling in players after the U.S. national team playersé association sent notification it had rejected a proposal of mediation that carried a no-strike condition.
USMNTPA had suggested mediation after the federation set a deadline of Monday for the players to accept binding arbitration; U.S. Soccer would accept mediation only if the players promised not to strike in 2005.
A lyric from a famous song of the '60s best sums up this torpid state of affairs: ''Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.''
This escalating feud is steeped in bad policy and poor decisions and wrong turns at nearly every turn.
Taking retroactivity off the table was wrong, although it's an unstated understanding any settlement would restore it. Boycotting the December training camp — i.e. going on strike, in the view of the federation — was wrong. Canceling a January camp and two friendlies — i.e. locking out the players — was wrong. Imposing a new deadline and limiting the playersé options to one — binding arbitration — was wrong.
But perhaps most wrong of all was the players' decision Thursday to reject its own proposal of mediation.
The players' refusal may follow traditional union decrees — just about any union head will tell you that solidarity and the threat of strike are a union's greatest sources of power — but it seems terribly wrong with the sides so far apart. It leaves a yawning chasm of mistrust and suspicion over which invective and threats are hurled, not to mention the possibility of the impasse lingering beyond the first Hexagonal match against Trinidad & Tobago Feb. 9, a date that now seems frighteningly near.
And to reject what you'd proposed to the other side, conditions notwithstanding, just has to be the wrong move at the wrong time.
The sides have been discussing a new collective bargaining agreement since 2003, after the deal agreed upon in 1999 expired following the 2002 World Cup. One of the conditions of continuing to operate under the old agreement was whatever new bonuses and payments were negotiated would be applied retroactively.
All the bickering and shouting was triggered by a federation decision to pull retroactivity off the table. That followed closely the hiring by the federation of two lawyers from Latham & Watkins, the former firm of Alan Rothenberg, to negotiate.
Which is how Russ Sauer of Latham & Watkins became the federation's ogre and is trading punches publicly with attorney Mark Levinstein, who is trying his best to portray the players' stance as fair compensation, not blind greed.
Speaking for the wrong, first up is Mr. Sauer.
When Coach Bruce Arena tried to intervene by suggesting a compromise, Sauer told him to butt out and flatly turned down his suggestion the players report to camp and play against T&T Feb. 9 with a new deadline of March 1.
So if nothing is settled, in effect, Russ Sauer will indirectly have dictated to Bruce Arena which players he can select for the U.S. in a Hexagonal qualifier. That's really wrong.
For more wrongness, let's call in Mr. Levinstein.
Levinstein has tried to play the money card in justifying the players' compensation being bumped up the scale. His claims that the European players can lose a good chunk of money by missing club games and commensurate appearance fees and bonus payments would ring truer if CONCACAF qualifiers weren't played primarily on FIFA dates when club play is suspended. The 2005 Gold Cup will be played in July, during the European player' summer break. Most MLS players earn negligible game bonuses, although missing league games could jeopardize some of the seasonal bonuses players have written into their contracts.
He also points out players risk injury and possible loss of playing time as a result of training and playing for the national team, which is true enough. But putting a money value on such scenarios is wildly subjective.
''The federation doesn't want to negotiate,'' says Levinstein. ''It doesn't want the players to have a union, and it wants to tell the players what to do.''
Levinstein questions why U.S. Soccer, with annual operating profits ê it reported a profit of $8.7 million for fiscal year 2003 — has pledged $15 million to MLS yet is offering the players an increase of less than one-third of that amount spread over four years.
Demanding a 108 percent increase, as the federation contends, seems grossly wrong and probably is. The players are using a typical negotiating ploy; asking for a lot more than they expect to get. Levinstein has suggested negotiating a percentage of the federation's overall revenues or national-team revenues, which he says the federation will not do.
''What percentage of revenues do you help generate?'' he asks. ''How about a percentage of profits? National team players get paid less than 7 percent of the revenues the national team generates for U.S. Soccer. By 2006 we'd be back around 10 percent, initially about 14 percent, paid to players.''
By extrapolating dollar values supplied by the federation for one signboard and one 30-second TV spot for each national-team game, Levinstein calculates the following sponsorship revenues as being generated by the men's national team: 2004 = $10.3 million; 2005 = $11.4 million; 2006 = $12.4 million.
''Sponsors don't pay for the U.S. Soccer logo on things,'' says Levinstein. ''Its not like the NFL. Sponsors pay for signboards and TV time for our games. Nobody's running ads about being the official whatever for U.S. Soccer, except a little bit in the Chevy ads.
''Do you want to take a percentage of profits, do you want to take a percentage of revenues? We've offered to have our compensation to be based on any of these formulas. We've offered for nine years to help with sponsorship and generate more money and get a percentage of what we help them generate, like the football players do with what their league. But they said definitely not.''
Two grants of $5 million each to help fund the building of soccer-specific stadiums for the Los Angeles Galaxy and FC Dallas and $1 million a year for the next five years to help fund the MLS reserve teams/league are worthy causes. Levinstein contends the men's national team players are important assets as well.
''Lamar Hunt is going to build a $70 million stadium [for FC Dallas] whether the federation gives him money or not,'' says Levinstein. ''I'd be very careful to spend my money on things that were clearly important to the development of the game and wouldn't happen otherwise.
''They have so much more money than what they're saying. In 2003, they had a $25 million surplus and they told us millions of dollars had been budgeted to MLS and they couldn't afford it. They told us $5 million was going to be spent in 2004 and they were going to lose $2.7 million in 2004. They spent that $5 million and didn't lose any money. ''They can pay everything through operations, they don't need that $30 million [surplus] to fund those stadiums and to do everything else they have planned.''
The next round of wrongness is supplied by U.S. Soccer director of communications Jim Moorhouse, who — rightly or wrongly — has done all the talking for the federation, save for prepared statements issued by President Bob Contiguglia.
Executive vice-president Sunil Gulati has been resolutely silent on the matter. Arena has refused comment. No statements have been made by secretary general Dan Flynn and deputy executive director Jay Berhalter, who have formulated many of the philosophies invoked while revamping the federations finances.
''A strike is not like a water faucet you turn on and off,'' says Moorhouse in support of the federation's draconian sequence of lockout, ultimatum, rejection (of Arena's compromise), and binding arbitration. ''They chose to go on strike. That gave us a level of uncertainty in terms of their participation at every event we have from this point forward, whether it's a camp, or a friendly, or a World Cup qualifier.
''If the PA genuinely believes that their bargaining stance and their latest proposals are fair and reasonable, we'd think they would wholeheartedly embrace [arbitration]. I can't conceive of any reason why they wouldn't. This is a resolution.''
Moorhouse's argument is logical and impassioned and terribly hard-headed. The federation's stance wrongly wrests control of the national team away from two of its highest ranking executives as well as the head coach. Yet Moorhouse points out the players could have submitted a new bonus structure for the arbitration process and have also rejected their own proposal of mediation.
''They could have increased it or lowered it, whatever they wanted to do,'' said Moorhouse of arbitration, in which an independent arbitrator would evaluate the proposals and choose one or the other, nothing in-between. ''We're so confident in our proposal being fair and reasonable that we would win. If they're not so confident in their proposal maybe it shouldn't be on the table.''
Rightly or wrongly, it's not on the table anymore.
Will MLS players — who are represented by their own union — not in the national-team pool show up at Home Depot this weekend if they are called? Levinstein doubts it.
Under-20 coach Sigi Schmid says he and Arena haven't discussed using youth internationals, although Schmid's players have been training for the past 10 days and hammered the T&T under-20s, 6-1, in its CONCACAF qualifying opener Wednesday.
''That hasn't been a thought and Bruce hasn't talked to me about that,'' says Schmid. ''I think everybody feels it will get resolved and there's a lot of players in MLS who are national team players and a lot of players in MLS who are not national team players. There's still a difference between a 28-year-old pro who hasn't made a national-team appearance and a U-20.''
But if MLS players don't accept the call, the pressure on the under-20s increases, especially on those taken in the SuperDraft. Does Arena go down one level to the A-League and/or summon uncapped Americans playing in Europe? Does he dip into the wheezing, reeling Major Indoor Soccer League? For a qualifier?
That's about as wrong as wrong can get.