Deadline Is Tonight for MISL
It has come down to today for the Major Indoor Soccer League.
On Feb. 26, the league’s owners set a deadline of 9 tonight (PDT) for the MISL Players Assn. to accept cost-cutting measures the owners said were necessary to stay in business. If the players do not accept the proposals by that time, the owners have said they will fold the 10-year-old league after the regular season ends Sunday.
There were more talks and proposals exchanged Thursday, but there was no agreement.
Negotiations were to continue today when John Kerr, MISLPA executive director, and other representatives from his office were to meet with MISL Commissioner Bill Kentling at 10 a.m. (PDT) in Washington.
Kevin Crow, Socker player representative, said Thursday he believes a settlement will be reached in time.
“They’ve got all the cards, ultimately,” Crow said. “The only card we had was to call their bluff. They know the players aren’t strong enough to do that. We don’t have another professional league to play in, a lot of the players aren’t good enough to play in other divisions (in Europe) and not a lot of them have degrees to go out and work right away. . . .
“They’re trying to ram everything down our throats that they can. They don’t want players having guarantees or bonuses. They want the whole ball of wax.”
Said Ron Cady, Socker president: “I think it’s in a negotiating stage. They want to get the most they can. I’m optimistic something will be worked out.”
Cady said he gave Crow permission to fly to Washington for today’s meetings.
On Thursday, the MISLPA and Kerr issued another six-page answer to the owners’ proposals. After receiving the document, the owners and Kentling discussed it in a four-hour conference call. They then issued a statement in New York, saying they had sent the union a response and reconfirming tonight’s deadline.
The major issues have been the proposed reduction of the per-team salary cap and the elimination of guaranteed no-cut, no-trade contracts. The owners want to lower the cap from $1.275 million to $898,000 per team, with $48,000 used to pay four amateur players.
Thursday, the MISLPA proposed a cap of $946,000 per club ($48,000 for amateur players) or 41% of average team revenues; the cap would increase if revenues were $2.2 million or greater. Kentling said earlier this week that the owners would agree to a cap tied to a percentage of profits, not revenues.
The owners propose eliminating guaranteed no-cut, no-trade provisions and all bonuses in standard player contracts. The MISLPA agreed that individual players would not be allowed to negotiate such clauses until June 30, 1990, when an amended collective bargaining agreement between the players and league would expire (the old agreement was to run through June 30, 1989).
In return for the two-year moratorium on guaranteed contracts, the MISLPA is asking that players with four or more years in the league (three with the same team) have the right to veto any trade once the season begins.
Also, any player in his fourth year or more would be entitled to a full guarantee of his contract from the third game of the regular season through June 30, or the final salary period. Under the current collective bargaining agreement, the guarantee begins after 12 games plus 48 hours.
The MISLPA said any new agreement should not affect current contracts that contain guarantees. A team and player would agree to a formula for dealing with those guarantees by June 1. If no formula were reached, a player would take a 15% cut for the remainder of his contract unless a new agreement were reached.
Crow says league owners are trying to “split up the Sockers,” and “they would love to have some of their players.” The Sockers are in a particularly precarious position because five of their players--Branko Segota, Brian Quinn, Brian Schmetzer, Gus Mokalis and Zoltan Toth--have guaranteed contracts for next season. Juli Veee and Fernando Clavijo have guarantees that won’t run out until Nov. 1.
The MISLPA agreed that teams may terminate or renegotiate any contract not guaranteed or without a no-cut provision as long as it was necessary to meet the salary cap and it happened between June 1 and June 30 of a given year.
The owners and players have agreed that each team’s letter of credit be increased from $250,000 to $400,000; that the current allotment of 12 new foreign players for the league be changed to one per club for the 1988-89 and 1989-90 seasons, with no club having the right to assign or trade its right to a new foreign player; and that beginning Aug. 1, no MISL club may negotiate a player contract with an agent not certified by the MISLPA.
In consideration of the MISLPA’s agreement on these issues, the union wants the MISL to guarantee two additional years of existence of the league (1988-89 and 1989-90) and to agree that revenues from expansion be placed in a trust to be administered jointly by the league commissioner and the executive director of the MISLPA.
The two sides are close on the issue of increasing the players’ playoff pool money. The owners propose increasing it from $100,000 to $222,000; the MISLPA proposes an increase to $250,000.
