Good Monday morning Caps fans — hope your weekend was a good one and you are making the most of the last two weeks of 2024.
If there is someone who is not ending the year on a high note, it certainly is MLS and it’s owners, who handed down two separate decisions last week that both simultaneously stunted the Leagues growth and showed its absolute worst, cash-grab instincts.
We start on Thursday when the league got Kerfoot-ed, so to speak, as the league’s board of governors approved only modest roster rule changes, recommended by the competition committee headed in part by the Whitecaps co-owner.
After rumors of making it easier for clubs to use all three U-22 spots and the hopes for a fourth DP, we instead got some TAM increases and changes to the discovery process (which shouldn’t even exist anyway).
The hope was the league was going to try and leverage Lionel Messi, the 2026 World Cup and years of more measured changes for a more dramatic overhaul of its roster building mechanisms.
The fact that a segment of owners (including ours) continue to hold the league back is a massive disappointment, even as league officials hint at pursuing some of these changes in future years. But that will be too late — MLS needs to improve its product now so it can scoop up interested fans later, not hope people stick around in an environment that competes for people’s eyeballs harder than ever.
But I think the frustration with this move would have largely disappeared if not for the announcement on Friday that MLS clubs would send their Next Pro affiliates, rather than their first teams, to compete in the U.S. Open Cup next season.
This obviously has no direct impact on the three Canadian clubs; there have been no indication that those three teams will phone in the Voyageurs Cup next year.
But this has a couple of meaningful ramifications. First is the obvious slap in the face to longtime fans, lower division clubs and decades of American Soccer history. The Cup competition is the longest running in U.S. history and it is always good for entertaining and emotional matches that present the only time where the entire U.S. soccer pyramid is behaving as its counterparts do around the world. Cupsets can happen, the USL and semipro teams often take center stage and competing in the competition is an enormously meaningful experience for those clubs. This erodes that in the interest of freeing up time for Leagues Cup, which was entertaining in 2023 but not something I could in good conscience get excited about in 2024 under these circumstances — it remains, at its core, a cash grab.
Then there is the competition problem. Canadian teams will hopefully participate in their domestic Cup competition. But teams in the U.S. will have three or four matches less fixture congestion. When you combine that with CONCACAF Champions Cup matches for the Caps, you’re talking about a significant load of matches that most American clubs won’t have. Canadian teams should not be punished for selling out.
There’s plenty more wrong here and I don’t pretend to be surprised. I love MLS but it is in spite of the league apparatus, not because of it. The league seems hell bent on rewarding the individuals holding it back, while declining opportunities to build more meaningful growth, either in the grassroots Open Cup or by allowing for greater investment in the on field product. No amount of snazzy TV deals or contrived competitions or friends of Lionel Messi can change that.
Life isn’t fair. But if MLS thinks rewarding the Greg Kerfoots of the world will make it a top 10 league in the world, I have bad news for them. The bad guy isn’t the Open Cup and it isn’t those who have worked hard to build up North American soccer to where it is now.
Best of the Rest
I forgot the Caps don’t have a first round pick in the Super Draft this year. But if you want a rooting interest for tomorrow, here are the top Canadians expected to be available
More on the competition committee and its outsized power on what MLS will look like in the years to come
A great write through on the problems with MLS’ U.S. Open Cup withdrawal
The Caps are reportedly interested in Rangers fullback Adam Devine. It comes after links to at least one other right back have surfaced, possibly a fallback for Richie Laryea not returning?
The New York Red Bulls have signed Emil Forsberg from their sister club RB Leipzig, the biggest splash for NYRB in some time
And to top it all, we’ve been auto-concacafed and will play a home game… out of town, all because of a bloody garden show?
why would you- or anyone- be surprised by Cap owner, Greg Kerfoot, wanting to stymie growth which might cause him money, but in the long run, bring in more $$$$– thats been his MO as a Cap owner- the investment returns are more part of his thinking IMO and he has made lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$ with expansion and media rights over the past 10 years- he is a conservative, MR Faceless Owner and no doubt has- for whatever reasons- the ear of MLS HQs – IMO, he is one of the worst MLS owners and i often ponder what he will do when expansion is finished (if my estimates are right, he and his group will get almost $9 mill USD from the San Diego expansion)
it will be very telling to see what Kerfoot does with Ryan Gauld’s contract and extension; and what Axel Schuster does in new signings for 2024
i also think the Caps have decided NOT to sign Lareya to a DP contract… and rightfully so
to some agree, i understand MLS players putting pressure on the MLS owners to stop adding more and more games to their overcooked amount of games- so deleting the US Cup games was a result- and we have to face reality with MLS- Canadian teams are an afterthought in any decision-making process