A strike looms loudly over the Spain's "La Liga"

The strike affects the top four divisions of the league, the Primera, Segunda A, Segunda B and Tercera divisions. The AFE (Spanish Players Union) said that 85% of soccer players in Spain’s top three divisions either get paid late or not at all. It also says that the Spanish Football Federation still owes the union €8 million ($10.7 million).

In the US we are very used to hearing about strikes. Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL have all been effected fairly recently by strike shortened seasons. The difference though is that these strikes were related to potential future earnings, not money owed. While this strike pertains mostly to soccer players playing in the lower tiers of Spain’s professional soccer league, it is still quite disconcerting to see that owners of professional soccer clubs are unwilling or unable to pay players what was promised.

This topic is a great excuse to show a picture of toilet paper money

On the bright side, it is nice to see that the more financially secure and powerful players in “La Liga” are supporting the up and coming and/or less talented players in the lower divisions. Without the support of the Primera division players, this strike would surely be taken less seriously.

Sadly it also means that we may miss some games in one of the world’s top soccer leagues, let us hope that it is all resolved shortly.

Iranian soccer player wears a hijab scarf

The hijab scarf — worn by girls and women to observe Islamic dress code — was not allowed under FIFA rules relating to on-field equipment, the Asian Football Confederation said. Despite the urging of Iran’s national Olympic committee for the ban to be reviewed by the International Olympic Committee, the Iranian under 18 girls soccer squad will not be participating in the coming youth Olympics this August.

In response to criticism regarding the decision, FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, referenced soccer’s international rulebook which contains a section on player equipment, stating that “basic compulsory equipment must not have any political, religious or personal statements.”

This is a peculiar problem for FIFA and soccer worldwide. The intent of the law was clearly to avoid religious persecution and problem by removing one potential source. Insisting that all teams wear uniforms that do not express religious or political opinions or agendas of any kind would normally help in that regard, but in this case the tolerance policy proves to be remarkably intolerant.

The best team from the Asian Football conference will not be playing in the tournament and it will be so because of a law that forces one side or the other to bend. FIFA has shown that they will not, and the Iranian Football Federation (F.F.I.R.I) certainly will not either. All in all, the whole thing is unfortunate as a team of hopeful young athletes who earned a spot in the Olympics will sit at home.

Iran was to have taken part in a six-nation tournament for girls at the inaugural competition in Singapore on Aug. 12-25. About 3,600 athletes, ages 14 to 18, will compete in 26 sports.

Thailand will now represent Asia in Iran’s stead against Turkey, Equatorial Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago, Chile and Papua New Guinea.

The revenues come from the state-controlled betting agency OPAP, which are worth a reported 40 million euros ($54 million) per year. This news is not necessarily surprising as Greek soccer has a poor record of crowd trouble and has been plagued by the problem again this season despite anti-violence advertising campaigns.

Hooligans!

There is a lot about this story that, for my fellow Americans, does not compute. When we have a (relatively rare) fight during a sporting event in one of our stadiums, a team of large men in yellow “Event Staff” jackets, breaks up the fight, kicks you out of the game and sometimes (if the fight is bad enough) will even give you a one way ticket to the local city jail for the night. So we don’t have fights, at least not usually. To have a story about soccer hooligans costing their sport “State Money” is one thing, but to find out that the specific line of money that is being cut is State controlled gambling revenue? That just makes an American turn around and leave the conversation.

Gambling works a little differently in the States (by niallkennedy)

So for my fellows here in the States, I’ll try to make this story more palatable. While in the US, gambling is sort of frowned upon and limited to places like New Jersey, and California’s version of New Jersey, Nevada; in Europe, gambling is more like playing the lottery. It is just sort of something you do sometimes to test your luck and find a buck. As for hooligans and soccer fights, those are more like bar fights in the US. Young fans who have already had too much to drink go to a football match. Here they drink some more and sometimes, a group of equally drunk fans from the visiting team will be just hammered enough to say something upsetting to the young drunk fans from the local team. All parties being wasted and young enough that they have nothing to lose, start brawling. The same thing would likely happen in the US if not for the fact that beers cost $9.00 a pop and become harder and harder to get every time we do have one of our rare fan fights.

Right now the Greeks are trying to keep opposing fans out of the local stadiums, but that is just punishing the masses for the actions of a few. Instead the Super League would do well to take a page out of America’s book and raise the price of beer. Combine that with America’s no beer after the 75 minute mark and a no entering the stadium while “trashed” policy and many of the hooligans will lose heart for the fight quickly. Either way, I hope that the Greek teams are able to continue operations and find a solution.

Image by SGFsoccer.com

The issue with the MLS structure can be explained fairly simply. Most people who follow sports have heard mention of the word franchise, as in, the “LA Lakers Basketball Franchise”.  This is because the four major professional sports leagues in North America (NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL) are “closed corporations” limited to a fixed number of teams, known as “franchises“.  With a few exceptions, these franchises enjoy geographical monopolies in major cities. Once an owner has control of a franchise he has the power within the framework of league rules, collectively agreed upon by the respective players union and the owners, to improve his franchise however he sees fit.

But the MLS is structured differently. The MLS is technically not an association of franchises but a single business entity. Though each team has an owner-operator, the team owners are actually shareholders in the league. The league, not the individual teams, contracts with the players.

With the structure defined, let’s look at both sides of this argument to show why it is causing a “strike-sized” disagreement.

The Players Side

The players union believes that the current structure limits the players ability to negotiate a new contract due to the lack of competing teams vying for the player’s services. The players can only negotiate with the league and the league decides where the players play. This system also restricts the players ability to switch teams or even choose the team for which they would like to play. Essentially, they are signing up to be an employee of MLS instead of an employee of one of its teams, so the league has much more control over where the player will play. The system controls costs and enables the league to keep parity in the MLS, but it does so, to some degree, at the expense of the players. This system also forces many of the best young American players to compete in Europe as the money is better overseas.

The Owners Side

Major League Soccer has had good years and bad years. It is still a fairly new league and the groups and individuals who own it feel as if they have been “propping the league up” through its infancy. To be fair many of them have, especially groups like AEG who were the first major investors in the league and who at one time were the owners of six of the 10 founding franchises. Part of the way that the current owners get money back from their investment is by selling off shares in the league to new ownership groups who then take responsibility for new teams, thereby helping to grow the league. As MLS is not well established like the NBA or the NFL, a new franchise is a risky investment. So a single entity is a much more enticing concept for potential new owners, as all owners split profits from a single pot. More owners means greater financial backing and a higher chance of success for an American pro soccer league, at least that’s how the owners see it.

by nicholasjon

Neither side is entirely wrong here and both sides are passionate about their argument, so a strike seems very likely. Where it ends up, only time will tell, but it will interesting to watch this unfold either way. I’ll do my best to keep you posted on the ins and outs.

by andreasnilsson1976

The Chilean National team avoided a possible expulsion from the World Cup yesterday, when one of the country’s club teams, the Rangers, dropped a court case contesting its disputed demotion to the second division of the national soccer league.

The dispute was over the teams relegation from the nation’s first division to its second division. Apparently the Rangers fielded six foreign players even though the league has a rule which limits teams to playing five. As the Rangers were winners of that game, the league removed three points from their season total, resulting in relegation.

Now, while it seems clear that the national league did the correct thing here as, innocent mistake or not, the Rangers violated a league rule, why did FIFA threaten to ruin the football hopes of an entire country over an internal matter? Did the national league asked for FIFA’s help? Don’t get me wrong, the court case is truly ridiculous, but it seems to me that kicking the National team out of the World Cup because a local club team is bickering over a case they can’t win, is overkill and frankly, also a bit ridiculous.

But hey, I guess it worked… of course it worked.