For a league that was exceptionally cautions in every step of its development, MLS has approached the move towards youth academies with a remarkable amount of laissez faire.
There is no set formula that clubs have to follow and the rules are deliberately set-up to allow some flexibility. For example, LA recently signed a Home Grown player in Jose Villarreal that did not qualify under the rules as written However, the league determined that it was more important to get the player into the league than to follow the rules fairly/pedantically (depends on your perspective).
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Players are supposed to spend a year in a team’s academy before they can be signed as a Home Grown. Sanchez did not, but he’s talented and MLS wanted him in the league. As he had overseas offers, it was felt that they could not wait until he qualified. A compromise solution was found that allowed the Galaxy to sign him, but prohibits him from playing for them until he’s been with them for a year.
Assumedly, but not explicitly, that will be the rule moving forward in situations like this.
The results have been incredibly unbalanced – decidedly un-MLS like even. You have teams like Salt Lake and Vancouver that are running academy programs that are bringing in kids from all over North America, operating alongside programs that are glorified soccer camps – a couple teams have pay-to-play programs at the younger age groups.
And then there are the rules. No one seems to understand them fully, including the clubs. There have been a few cases already where a team’s claim for a Home Grown signing has been denied, and a few, like Villarreal, where the league’s decision has not been universally accepted.
MLS does not publically list the detailed rule, but MLS executive vice president of competition and player relations Todd Durbin recently broke it down in some detail for Goal.com
The basics:
Each club sends a list of 18 to 20 potential prospects in four separate age groups (U-14, U-16, U-18 and U-23) to the league office on a quarterly (or, in some cases, more frequent) basis. The players included on that list must be in the club's youth development system at the time (and presumably located within its home territory – generally defined as within a 75-mile radius of the home stadium plus any additional territory granted to the team) and may not include any U.S. youth internationals who were not involved in the club's academy program prior to their inclusion with the national team.All players must take part in a combination of 80 games or practice sessions before departing for college in order to establish their eligibility for a Home Grown contract. Once they leave for school, they must participate in a minimum of 30 games or practice sessions (usually with the first team, but not always) during their four years in order to maintain their connection to the club. No player may feature in a competitive first-team game without spending at least one season under the club's auspices, even if an exception is made to include them under the Home Grown rule
Of interest to Canadian fans is the US youth exclusion. I confirmed with TFC earlier today that the rule is as written -- Canadian youth internationals are not excluded from being claimed after they’ve appeared for the national team -- yet another advantage Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal have and another example of the unevenness of the home grown rule.
For years, MLS has put rules in place designed to create parity across the league. They have been effective. Famously, it took until 2011 for a DP to lift the MLS Cup, and the league’s glamour club, the LA Galaxy, have only been champions three times.
Salt Lake, Colorado and Columbus have all been on top, while New York has yet to win a single trophy. Up until now big market advantages have not been evident.
That desire for parity to the point of blandness – CSN’s Ben Knight once suggested that the MLS schedule didn’t feature rotating opponents, but rather a series of changing strip colours coming through town – has been seen as a necessary evil for the league’s financial survivability.
So, it’s a bit odd that they are letting the Home Grown rule exist in what is essentially the Wild West. It’s clear to anyone that gives it even the most surface analysis that the teams that have the strongest academy systems are likely going to consistently be the top teams. And the strongest academies will most likely come from the larger centres.
Even if the players they produce end up being sold to bigger clubs rather than playing for the MLS team, the allocation they get from the sales will allow them to get more talent. And, having a core of young, free academy kids on your roster (but not taking a roster spot) also allows teams to carry more players, key to playing in multiple competitions.
Unlike the league itself, there is no cap on how much a team can spend on its academy. Suddenly, MLS has an avenue for rich owners to outspend their cheap colleagues. It seems unlikely we will see the New England Revolution losing multiple MLS Cups in a row again anytime soon.
It will take some time (although not as long as many suggest) for the rule to have its full impact, both on the positive and negative side of the equation. So, it will be a little while yet before the (dwindling) supporters of forced parity start to demand that a form of development socialism be implemented. However, for the first time in league history, those calls will go unheard. The rule is here to stay and MLS will continue to evolve into something that more closely resembles the rest of the world.
That doesn’t mean there won’t continue to be restraints placed on teams. Three DPs is likely the max for a while and the salary cap is likely never going away and will never be increased as quickly as some will want it to be. There are business reasons for these rules and just because the league’s partners are willing to open things up in one way doesn’t mean they are ready to throw the door wide open.
It begs the question, why are they willing to open things up on the development front? The answer is likely two-fold. One is cynical – selling a player you develop can make more money than an entire season’s gate in some cities. However, the other is at least somewhat altruistic. Teams want to help the sport grow in Canada and the United States.
That’s the spirit of the thing anyway. As suggested, some teams are far less inclined to play the game. Drafting free college kids has worked for years; it will work in the future, damn the evidence otherwise.
Then there is the Philadelphia Union, who seem to be trying to find some middle way. The Union don’t physically have an academy, but they partnered with several local and established academies that are “affiliated” (for a cool $1,000 a year, paid to the Union). The Union invest in these players by consulting with the host clubs and bringing a select few of the players together occasionally to practice or play as the Union. This arrangement allows the Union to play the Home Grown game without really playing the development game. Good for the club; maybe not so good for the game.
As with many aspects of the rule, not everyone in the league agrees with their approach. But, in the Wild West of MLS development consensus is the exception, not the rule.
Over the next few months, I will look at how development is seen across the league in a series called Future Watch. Follow me on Twitter at @24thminute to learn when the articles will be published.