Canadian Expansion Draft

[ArmenJBX]

Well, now that Vancouver and Montreal are official MLS expansion teams, they're going to need Canadian players. What players do you think Montreal and Vancouver are going to try to get their hands on? They need X amount of Canadians, so do you think they'll pick up players like Will Johnson, Dejan Jakovic, Antonio Ribeiro, Serioux, and Andre Hainault, or will those Canadian players stick with their teams?

Also, should TFC try to pick up a couple of these players? I'm sure Hainault and Johnson would be great for Toronto.

[werewolf]

Adam Braz, Marco Reda and my all-time favourite TFC player Srdjan Djekanovic.

[Phil]

How is this news?

[TFCRegina]

Montreal should sign Lombardo.

[ArmenJBX]

I apologize, this should probably be in the Canadian Soccer forum. My bad

[razor787]

In my opinion, MLS should make it a north american player limit. Instead of saying "you need _ americans for american teams" or you need _ canadians for canadian teams". It makes it a lot more fair for everyone, if its a limit for the amount of north american players.

There is already not many great canadian mls players. Adding in 2 new teams is cutting down on the canadian talent pool. They will be signing any canadian players, just to get the numbers.

[Serb_Star]

They'll probably just keep some of the ones they currently have.

[razor787]

yea, and they are USL quality players. A lot of them wouldnt be that great in the MLS.

[ArmenJBX]

Which players from Toronto FC do you think they would (possibly) take from us if left unprotected?

I can see us losing OBW or Cann

[drewski]

get nick garcia citizenship. maybe one of them will take him

[Cannon]

get nick garcia citizenship. maybe one of them will take him

THIS!

[Pachuco]

Ali Gerba

[maninb]

Will Johnson is one of RSL's best players...no chance he's available...

[Billy the kid]

Both teams have a lot of Canadians already. I don't think they'll have any trouble keeping enough domestic players. I think they will try to add a few key players to their existing team.

[fetajr]

Montreal should sign Lombardo.

they will probably get more out of Lombardo than what the monkey running our bench in 2007 could ever do.

[ManUtd4ever]

Which players from Toronto FC do you think they would (possibly) take from us if left unprotected?

I can see us losing OBW or Cann

Not a chance OBW or Cann are left unprotected. Maybe Gala...

[Pachuco]

Yeah there's no chance in hell we leave Cann or OBW unprotected. We have a ton of other guys that can be left unprotected, heck, we don't even need to leave a Canadian up for grabs do we?

Usanov
Hscanovic
Gargan
Saric
Peterson
Ibrahim
Garcia
Harden

Is that enough players unprotected?

[Steve]

In my opinion, MLS should make it a north american player limit. Instead of saying "you need _ americans for american teams" or you need _ canadians for canadian teams". It makes it a lot more fair for everyone, if its a limit for the amount of north american players.

There is already not many great canadian mls players. Adding in 2 new teams is cutting down on the canadian talent pool. They will be signing any canadian players, just to get the numbers.

I agree with you, but I've heard rumblings that it would be against American labour laws. Essentially, you cannot give preferential treatment to one group of foreign citizens over another if they are both eligible to work in the US. Now, I don't know if Canada has similar laws (any lawyers in the house?), but if they do, I would be curious as to how it works for TFC (who has spots for American citizens). Also, I believe the old NASL had rules like you're suggesting, so maybe what I mentioned above is just a smokescreen?

[menefreghista]

I agree with you, but I've heard rumblings that it would be against American labour laws.

Its not against American labour laws. The USL already implements a rule where Canadians and Americans are considered domestic for all teams.

The real reason it hasn't been allowed yet is due to pressure from the USSF.

[Steve]

Yeah there's no chance in hell we leave Cann or OBW unprotected. We have a ton of other guys that can be left unprotected, heck, we don't even need to leave a Canadian up for grabs do we?

Usanov
Hscanovic
Gargan
Saric
Peterson
Ibrahim
Garcia
Harden

Is that enough players unprotected?

No, it isn't. You can only protect 11 players, and according to wiki, we hve 24. The biggest problem for us is going to be our internationals. See, according to the expansion draft rules, you MUST protect 3 of your internationals. As far as I can tell, here is the list we definitely want to protect:

Canadians:
Attakora
de Guzman (with 3 DP slots available, who is to say Vancouver wouldn't take him?)
Cann
DeRo
White (counts as Canadian I think)

Americans (or counts as American)
Cronin
Barrett
LaBrocca
Frei

That's a total of 9. We can only protect 11, and remember, 3 must be internationals (I'd assume we would protect Sanyang and Gomez for sure). That means we cannot protect one of the above. Though Generation adidas is automatically protected, I don't think any of our players are on it anymore. Sure, we can leave de Guzman off and hope, but assuming it's legal for another team to take him (and I can't see anything forbiding it) do we take that risk? If he has a no trade clause, we have no choice but to protect him. Other than that, it has to be an American. So, Labrocca or Cronin?

Ok, I know it's WAY too early to discuss this, but when it comes down to that, I see us unloading Cronin (I still think he has good trade value) sometime this summer for an international we want to keep. Weirdly enough, a move like that would actually secure us against the draft much better than keeping an American (and between Portland and Vancouver, you can get he'll be taken).

[Steve]

Its not against American labour laws. The USL already implements a rule where Canadians and Americans are considered domestic for all teams.

The real reason it hasn't been allowed yet is due to pressure from the USSF.

Fair enough, but I'm pretty sure that is the excuse Garber has always given. Here's an idea, if we have any lawyers around, research how the USL is able to do it, and bring it up to Garber at the 2010 supporters' summit (which happens to be here after the cup). I know when it was brought up last year in Seattle at the supporters' summit he cited US labour law, so if we can put together some research detailing why he's wrong, maybe we can get a real answer, and together with Vancouver, Montreal, and the CSA (lol) push for a rule change.

[kitchener-TFC]

Is there any chance of OBW getting Canadian citizenship?

[Broadview]

Is there any chance of OBW getting Canadian citizenship?

He's a landed immigrant, which means he already counts as a Canadian when it comes to MLS roster regs. Even if he gets tied to Jamaica, he'll still count as a domestic for us.

It's similar to when we had Amado, since he held a green card he counted as an American as opposed to taking an international slot.

[Pachuco]

No, it isn't. You can only protect 11 players, and according to wiki, we hve 24. The biggest problem for us is going to be our internationals. See, according to the expansion draft rules, you MUST protect 3 of your internationals. As far as I can tell, here is the list we definitely want to protect:

Canadians:
Attakora
de Guzman (with 3 DP slots available, who is to say Vancouver wouldn't take him?)
Cann
DeRo
White (counts as Canadian I think)

Americans (or counts as American)
Cronin
Barrett
LaBrocca
Frei

That's a total of 9. We can only protect 11, and remember, 3 must be internationals (I'd assume we would protect Sanyang and Gomez for sure). That means we cannot protect one of the above. Though Generation adidas is automatically protected, I don't think any of our players are on it anymore. Sure, we can leave de Guzman off and hope, but assuming it's legal for another team to take him (and I can't see anything forbiding it) do we take that risk? If he has a no trade clause, we have no choice but to protect him. Other than that, it has to be an American. So, Labrocca or Cronin?

Ok, I know it's WAY too early to discuss this, but when it comes down to that, I see us unloading Cronin (I still think he has good trade value) sometime this summer for an international we want to keep. Weirdly enough, a move like that would actually secure us against the draft much better than keeping an American (and between Portland and Vancouver, you can get he'll be taken).

Okay I'm confused

But if I'm reading this correctly, we could leave Gomez unprotected in order to protect Cronin? if that's the case I'm all for that. Gomez has no trade value and that status won't improve considering he'll probably miss the entire season.

[rocker]

Its not against American labour laws. The USL already implements a rule where Canadians and Americans are considered domestic for all teams.

The real reason it hasn't been allowed yet is due to pressure from the USSF.

Do you have a link that provides more information on that rule?
You mean the USSF Division 2? The USL division of the USSF Division 2 just says this:

USL rosters may consist of a maximum of 26 players, with 18 designated for each game. In the PDL, a maximum of eight (8) players may be over the age of 23. In USL-2, each team is permitted a maximum of seven (7) foreign players on its active game-day roster and on its master roster. The PDL and W-League are permitted a maximum of eight (8) foreign players on both rosters.

So nothing on their site about Canadians and Americans, just foreign players.

[menefreghista]

Do you have a link that provides more information on that rule?
You mean the USSF Division 2 or lower level USL?

Garber said, distinctly, during the Seattle supporters convention last MLS Cup that it couldn't be done because of immigration laws.

Garber is essentially lying.

This was during the old USL1 days. I'm not sure if they kept the rule in tact with the new USSF Div.2/USL1/NASL league.

But they definitely considered all Canadians and Americans domestic across the entire USL1 for at least the last couple of seasons.

As I've said previously, its the USSF that isn't allowing it in MLS. But then again, we don't even know if TFC or even the CSA lobbied to have the domestic rules altered. We know TFC asked for requiring less Canadians. Not sure what the CSA has done.

[Steve]

Okay I'm confused

But if I'm reading this correctly, we could leave Gomez unprotected in order to protect Cronin? if that's the case I'm all for that. Gomez has no trade value and that status won't improve considering he'll probably miss the entire season.

No. The rule is, you MUST protect 3 foreign players. Neither Americans nor Canadians count as foreign players for TFC. That means that we HAVE to protect three of our international slots, so no, we can't leave Gomez (an international) available and protect Cronin, that would mean we are leaving too many international players available, which is against the rules. Essentially, the rule is in place to prevent everyone from leaving their int players available, and having the incoming team have no options for domestic players.

[devioustrevor]

On the list of Canadians people seem to be forgetting Gabe Gala. Also, by the time the expansion draft rolls around I think Fuad Ibrahim will be eligible for landed immigrant status as he'd have been a permanent resident for over 2 years. Even Chad Barrett would be eligible I think.

[Carts]

In my opinion, MLS should make it a north american player limit. Instead of saying "you need _ americans for american teams" or you need _ canadians for canadian teams". It makes it a lot more fair for everyone, if its a limit for the amount of north american players.

There is already not many great canadian mls players. Adding in 2 new teams is cutting down on the canadian talent pool. They will be signing any canadian players, just to get the numbers.

Absolutely...

But be serious, this makes way too much common sence for pro-sports...

Carts...