MSL Owners Delay Decision Until Monday : Soccer: Some players want to accept a reduced salary cap, but are they a majority?

One day after the Major Soccer League Players Assn. rejected a demand by owners to reduce the salary cap to $550,000, the league office asserted there is dissension in the ranks and that players from four MSL teams actually accepted the lower ceiling.

On July 25, players were told that if they didn’t accept the reduced cap, the league would fold Thursday. Neither happened. Instead, owners scheduled a conference call for Monday to discuss their options.

It is not known if they will consider the players’ counterproposal of a $600,000 cap, or if they simply are waiting for the union to collapse and the players to acquiesce.

MSL spokesman John Griffin said four teams--the Sockers, Cleveland, Tacoma and Baltimore--sent faxes to John Kerr, executive director of the union, and to the league office indicating players from those teams will accept the owners’ demand.

In addition, Commissioner Earl Foreman on Thursday said he received verbal assurances from players of the defunct Dallas Sidekicks that they would go along with the plan if he could resuscitate that franchise.

It is not known how accurately the faxes reflect player opinion. None of the faxes were signed, nor did they list any players, Griffin said.

Socker forward Rod Castro said he was present when the Sockers voted on the measure and only eight players were polled (Castro said three rejected the plan).

There was a better turnout in Baltimore. Blast player representative Rusty Troy said he informed the MSL office on Friday that Blast players had voted, 13-5, to accept the rollbacks. It was his first opportunity to express the players’ feelings, he said. The union had not asked.

Castro said he thinks the league will survive and feels owners are trying to pressure players.

“I think there will be a league,” he said. “If there wasn’t going to be, I think owners would have folded it a long time ago.

“There have been some problems the past couple days where some players have gone out on their own and sent messages to owners saying they accept the owners’ proposal. But not everyone has.

“What you have to realize is that there is no other situation like this in any other sport or business. The players have not only been put under the pressure of possibly losing their jobs, but they have been put under the added pressure of possibly losing the entire industry. It’s not like a baker whose boss says accept a pay cut or I have to close the doors. That guy can just go to another bakery. But there is no other stable . . . relatively stable . . . professional soccer in this country.

“So if the owners say that’s it, then that’s it. . . . They’re doing this knowing that the players will start to crumble under all that pressure.”

Kerr echoed Castro’s words.

“I’m not surprised (by the apparent rebellion),” he said from the union’s Washington office. “These players are under tremendous pressure. They were told to accept (the rollbacks) or they would not only lose their jobs, they would lose their industry.”