The Major League and MLS Footballers’ Association announced on Friday that they have reached an interim agreement on a revised collective bargaining agreement.
The CBA was approved by the union’s executive board and bargaining committee with a 24-11 vote, according to a source. The agreement will now be sent to members of the full players’ union for a vote, which could take place immediately on Saturday. A simple majority is all that is needed to ratify the agreement.
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The agreement should then be approved by the league’s governing council. This is expected to take place and would pave the way for the opening of training camps on February 22 and the start of the MLS season on April 3. It also avoids ending the CBA and blocking players, who have been threatened by MLS if a deal could not be reached.
MLS has announced that the table proposal will extend CBA by two years until 2027, a clause for which the league has fought forever since the start of negotiations and something that has been a stumbling block in the talks.
The extension has the effect of delaying the jump in compensation that usually comes with a new CBA. More importantly, such an expansion gives the league a considerable distance from the 2026 World Cup – hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico – and removes the MLSPA leverage to negotiate improved conditions in the run-up to the tournament. and the following years.
Sources told ESPN that the benefits of the players in the proposal include a reduction in salaries in 2021, along with improved free agency conditions in 2026 and 2027, in which 24-year-olds with four years of service would qualify. . The old business requires five years of service.
Players will also receive a 10% increase in general salaries in 2027 and improved salaries for players classified as senior minimums. As for the revenue-sharing agreement for the next media rights agreement, players will receive a percentage of the difference between the new business (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 were reopened after MLS invoked a force majeure clause on December 29 due to the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the slower than anticipated launch of the COVID-19 vaccine, MLS expects to consider another year with few or no fans in the stands. Given its reliance on game day revenue, MLS says its finances will be severely affected and that players should bear some of the sacrifices.
The union countered that the MLS approach was not out of financial necessity, but rather out of financial opportunism. MLSPA made $ 150 million in concessions throughout the transaction when it signed the previous CBA in June last year.
The invocation of the force majeure clause opened a 30-day window for the two parties to negotiate a revised LCA. As no agreement was reached in that window, either party could have terminated the CBA. But MLS was the only party that threatened such a maneuver, saying that if no agreement was reached, it would not only terminate the CBA, but also block the players.
The threat of interruption gave the league an increased leverage, and MLS used it with good effect, extracting the main concessions it sought at the beginning of the talks.
This marks the third time in the last year that the two sides have negotiated a CBA. The two sides reached an agreement in principle in February last year, but neither side has officially ratified the agreement. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, MLS reopened negotiations, with the two sides agreeing on a revised agreement in June last year. Under this agreement, the league managed to introduce the force majeure clause mentioned above.
Sources told ESPN that the force majeure clause will not be in force until December 1, 2021, but can be invoked after that time.