The thread for discussions, questions and tidbits about MLS rules in general

Good article from 2010 on DP

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/new...ontinue-growth

Garber State of Union address from 2010, with this tidbit of quote

http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/soccer...#ixzz1r8J72S52

By the way, many people erroneously refer to our budget as a salary cap. It's not a cap. It's more of a foundation or a baseline. Most of our clubs are spending between $3.5 million to $4 million on their salary budgets. That is not counting Designated Player salaries. That is with allocations and other things that they're able to do, in essence, to become a fully funded MLS club salary budget.





We've increased the amount of allocation money. It is up to almost $10 million in 2011. That is money that we provide to our teams. (We provide it) to those that don't perform well at the end of the year. Teams can carry over that allocation money. We use this money in essence to boost our salary budgets so that our teams can have a higher quality of play and be more competitive. Not just here, but we're becoming increasingly more focused competing continentally in the CONCACAF Champions League.





We've provided our clubs more flexibility to use that allocation money to buy down their budget for Designated Players or other star players. So, in essence, clubs do not have to take that full budget charge. If clubs have allocation money they can write it down and have that player on their roster for less money (against the salary budget).