The Major League Soccer Players Association and MLS announced Friday that they have reached an interim agreement on a revised collective bargaining agreement.
According to a source, the union’s executive committee and bargaining committee approved the CBA by a 24-11 vote. The deal will now be sent to all members of the players ’union to vote, which could be held as soon as Saturday. Only a simple majority is needed to ratify the agreement.
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The deal should be approved by the league’s governing council. It is expected to be done and will pave the way for the opening of training camps on February 22nd and the start of the MLS season on April 3rd. It also avoids the termination of the ACB and the blocking of players, who had been threatened by MLS if no agreement could be reached.
MLS announced that the proposal on the table would extend the CBA for two years until 2027, a clause the league had fought for forever since the start of negotiations and something that had been a turning point in the talks.
The extension has the effect of delaying the compensation jump that normally occurs with a new CBA. Most importantly, this extension provides the league with a considerable distance from the 2026 World Cup – co-organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico – and removes the MLSPA’s leverage to negotiate improved conditions during tournament preparation. and the following years.
Sources told ESPN that among the benefits of the players included in the proposal, there are no pay cuts in 2021, along with improvements in free agency terms in 2026 and 2027, in which players would be rated 24 years and four years of service. The old agreement required five years of service.
Players would also receive a 10% increase in overall salary in 2027 and salary improvements for players classified as at least senior. As for the revenue sharing agreement for the next media rights contract, players will get a percentage of the difference between the new agreement (plus $ 100 million). In 2023 and 2024, this percentage will be 12.5% (a decrease in 2024 of 12.5 percentage points) and, from 2025 to 2027, this percentage will be 25%.
Negotiations on the revised CBA reopened after MLS invoked a force majeure clause on Dec. 29 due to the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the slower-than-expected release of the COVID-19 vaccine, MLS expects it to be watching another year with few or no fans in the stands. Given its reliance on match day revenue, MLS says its finances will be severely affected and players should bear some of the sacrifices.
The union had countered that the MLS approach was not out of financial necessity, but out of financial opportunism. The MLSPA obtained $ 150 million in concessions over the life of the deal when it signed the previous CBA last June.
The invocation of the force majeure clause opened a 30-day window for both parties to negotiate a revised CBA. As no agreement was reached within this window, the two parties could have terminated the ACC. But the MLS was the only band that threatened this maneuver, claiming that if no deal was reached, it would not only end the CBA, but also shut down the players.
The threat of stopping work gave the league more leverage, and MLS used it to good effect, extracting the major concessions it sought at the start of talks.
This is the third time in the last year that the two sides have negotiated a CBA. The two sides reached an agreement in principle last February, but neither party formally ratified the agreement. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, MLS reopened negotiations, with both parties agreeing on a revised agreement last June. In this agreement, the league managed to insert the aforementioned force majeure clause.
Sources told ESPN that the force majeure clause will not be in effect until December 1, 2021, but may be invoked after that time.