Take Gun...Don't Shoot Foot

These are the voyages...

Or, winning, how can Major League Soccer flourish going forward?

The simple answer: Get the lawyers together. Get the owners together. Get the best soccer minds together. Put them all on the next Virgin Galactic shuttle scheduled to blast into space. Set the shuttle's controls for indefinite orbit.

Don't bring them back until they write a new set of guidelines for the operation of Major League Soccer.

Things that MUST be included within Major League Soccer's revolutionary, incredibly simple, new enterprise (Think, Enterprise, the spaceship. "North American Soccer: these are the voyages of the soccership Major League Soccer. It's fifty-year mission: to explore strange new, never before witnessed in North America, worlds of competition, to seek out the testicles of Major League Soccer's owners and start a new footballing civilization. To boldly go where no North American soccer team owner has gone before...no holds barred competition between Major League Soccer clubs, their owners and most importantly: rosters full of the young, diverse, melting-pot faces of the North American universe.)

And now, the rules:

1. The League offices will no longer dictate what players each club can sign.

2. The League offices WILL dictate the salary cap.

3. If there must be designated players, the limit will be (2), not more than (2), not less than (2). The number shall be (2). (2) Shall be the number.

4. The League will continue to expand until there are enough teams for a closed, two tiered league with promotion and relegation. (All you big business, oh-so-realist, apologists, stuff it. Soccer is a sport for the players, the people and there are no kings or queens in soccer. The owners can grow a pair and compete, just like the players do every day. Bunch of megalomaniac sissies. Nice job up to this point, though.)

5. The league will have unfettered access to all teams' financial dealings, in order to keep owners from floating off into space.

6. There will be no more allocation process.

7. The new salary cap will be no less than $6,000,000 per team (This will more than likely triple in seven year's time, as the next TV deal should be in the $500,000,000 per year range).

8. If teams want to sign only 25 players (this should be the league minimum), so be it.

9. If teams want to sign 40 players (this should be the league maximum), so be it.

10. Every team will have at least 15 North American born players on their first team roster.

In summary: Take the next step. Get the clubs and owners competing. Build rosters
around the North American born player, there's millions of them and they're good, really good. And get the owners competing. Did I say "get the owners competing?"