MLS: minimum annual salary from $24,000 US to $28,000 US

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Major League Soccer, players' union reach tentative labour agreement

posted November 11 @ 15:44, EST

NEW YORK (AP) - Major League Soccer and its players' union tentatively agreed on a five-year labour contract Thursday, ending nearly 1½ years of negotiations.

The agreement comes as the league concludes its ninth season with Sunday's MLS Cup in Carson, Calif., between the Kansas City Wizards and D.C. United, and nearly four years after the players lost an antitrust suit against the league. The deal must be ratified by the players. MLS Players Union executive director Bob Foose said that because the season has ended for most teams, players have scattered and it will take several weeks before they can vote on the deal.

The agreement features an increase in the minimum annual salary from $24,000 US to $28,000 next season and increases to $34,000 in the final year of the contract, Foose said. It also includes health coverage paid fully by the league, a pension benefit and an agreement on group licensing involving the players.

The negotiations began shortly after the union was certified in April 2003 and almost 2½ years after the players lost their antitrust suit.

The players had claimed MLS's single-entity system, in which the league controls all player contracts and pays them from a central fund, was an illegal monopoly. A federal judge dismissed some of the claims and a jury rejected the others.

During the trial in late 2000, MLS said it had lost a combined $250 million in its first five years of operations.

"Certainly there was some history to get over, and the issue of the lawsuit came up at various points," Foose said. "I don't think that was huge issue for either side. Both sides worked very hard to get through the negotiations. While they very, very long, and both sides were frustrated at times, the tone of negotiations was good."

MLS deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis said the negotiations took longer than expected, but that neither group let past disputes disrupt the talks.

"Both sides approached the discussions looking forward and not looking back," he said. "Negotiating a modern-day collective bargaining agreement from scratch is immensely difficult, and the process took longer than anyone anticipated. But at same time, the amount of ground covered, and the range of issues on which agreement was reached, was enormous."