Purple Press 5.15.20

It’s Friday again, and that means an amalgamation of Louisville City-related soccer news! Here we go:

Five substitution rule return?

COVID-19 may cause the return of the five sub rule in USL according to Indomitable City Soccer, among other sources. For newer fans, before 2017, the USL used five substitutions per game, largely to help deal with weekend schedule congestion. Clubs would often play each other or nearby clubs twice in two or three days during the earlier iterations of the modern USL. The rule made sense before USL was finally able to move to a schedule where games were mostly played on weekends.

In these times of COVID-19 induced schedule compression, allowing additional subs makes sense again. IFAB, the sport’s rules-making body, hasn’t officially approved the five-sub rule yet, and if it does, it’s likely to have a sunset provision attached to it. However, the Bundesliga, which kicks off this weekend, is reputedly doing it anyway. If the USL manages to get back to playing games in 2020, clubs will probably be playing two games per week, and the additional subs will definitely make sense.

USL makes two new proposals to player contracts

The USL and its players’ association haven’t reached a collective bargaining agreement yet, but the league threw out two new proposals this week that are sure to be snags to getting the agreement ratified.

The first, outlining “Return-to-Play Protocols,” grants the league exclusive authority to institute measures towards the resumption of the 2020 season while “the USLPA expressly waives its statutory right to bargain over such Return-to-Play Protocols.” According to the document, the league will retain this power “during the term of the CBA (or, in the absence thereof…through December 31, 2021).”
The Athletic, “USL proposes blanket pay cut for Championship players”, May 9, 2020

Seems pretty unilateral, though maybe not a huge thing for the PA to give up in exchange for something they want. The provision also calls for procedures to test players to ensure full health and safety while requiring each player to have a detailed medical file confidentially held by their club. Seems reasonable. The second proposal, though is much more problematic:

[The proposed force majeure clause] spells out two potential payment changes depending on whether or not a player is provided housing by their club, as players with family often opt for their own housing separate from team-secured, multi-player units. The document also includes a proposed new pay scale if play resumes more than 30 days after May 31st, for players reliant on club housing as well as those who are not.

The current USL standard player contract doesn’t have a force majeure clause in it, which seems like an oversight by some attorney. Force majeure, or “acts of God” clauses excuse parties to a contract from having to perform their end of it, whether that’s playing games or paying a salary. The proposal adds one in, and would kick in within 30 days if the USL decided not to have a 2020 season. That would mean an entire league’s worth of players could be unemployed.

Naturally, the players aren’t big fans of either proposal, but especially not the pay scale one. Obviously, they’re getting paid right now even though they aren’t playing games and earning revenue for their clubs. A lot of clubs are straining against that revenue/expense bottleneck. However, that’s definitely not the players’ fault. To ask the players to bear the brunt of the risk of COVID-19 without offering anything in return seems like an easy pass to me. We’ll see how things develop going forward, but what looked like a pretty agreeable CBA process just got a lot stickier.