Landon Donovan’s Future and the Heart of Labor’s Discontent

Eyes are about to be cast on Donovan’s future, with his MLS return to put his Ever­ton future at the mercy of labor nego­ti­a­tions. (Photo: ZumaPress)

Lan­don Dono­van has impressed David Moyes and the Ever­ton FC brass enough to jus­tify a pur­chase, though the Tof­fees’ gaffer is resigned to los­ing the Amer­i­can star when the player’s loan expires this month.

Once the Galaxy star returns state­side, the pre­car­i­ous labor sit­u­a­tion could put Donovan’s Liv­er­pool future on hold indef­i­nitely, regard­less of whether Ever­ton is will­ing to meet Major League Soccer’s demands.

When Dono­van comes back, he is unlikely to be sold back to Ever­ton before the begin­ning of the next Pre­mier League sea­son. There is, after all, a rea­son MLS wanted their sec­ond most mar­ketable player back to train before the start of the sea­son. How­ever, with their appar­ent intent to con­tinue using Dono­van as a mar­ket­ing tool — at least for the start of the 2010 sea­son — the tim­ing of a future move becomes pre­car­i­ous in light of labor uncertainties.

In my opin­ion, the odds of MLS and the MLSPU mak­ing it until August or Sep­tem­ber with­out a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment or work stop­page is pretty low. If the play­ers were will­ing to let the terms of the old bar­gain­ing agree­ment dic­tate their employ­ment for an entire sea­son, we would prob­a­bly have some sort of a deal in place. Also, player lever­age because incred­i­bly high if they can use the poten­tial World Cup-boon as well as the months before the start of foot­ball to their advantage.

If a work stop­page were to hap­pen over the sum­mer, would Dono­van be able to com­plete a move to Ever­ton (a move that is start­ing to look move inevitable)? Bet­ter still, how would the mechan­ics of such a sale work?

While a sec­ond loan deal seems like some­thing the two sides could come together to allow, the options sur­round­ing a per­ma­nent sale are mud­died by labor uncertainty.

Donovan’s con­tract exten­sion with MLS was ques­tioned in light of his pro­fessed desire to explore Europe again, but MLS’s options for upcom­ing sea­sons made sign­ing an exten­sion a log­i­cal deci­sion. (Photo: ZumaPress)

Lan­don Dono­van is not only under con­tract to Major League Soc­cer, but the league holds his reg­is­tra­tion — a very impor­tant detail when it comes to soc­cer play­ers. While a strike would typ­i­cally mean a worker could be employed else­where while no agree­ment was in place, that does not mean Donovan’s reg­is­tra­tion would be released by Major League Soccer.

With­out this release from MLS, Ever­ton would not be able to com­plete a Dono­van acqui­si­tion, even if the attacker and club wanted to com­plete a deal. Just because the CBA gov­ern­ing Donovan’s con­tract loses rel­e­vance when a work stop­page is enacted, MLS is not oblig­ated to release the player’s registration.

Whether FIFA would step-in and allow the move: that’s an open ques­tion. This idea of “strike” or “lock-out” is pretty new to inter­na­tional soc­cer. There is not a lot of prece­dent for such transactions.

And this reg­is­tra­tion issue is not unique to Lan­don Dono­van. We have no idea whether the gov­ern­ing bod­ies will respect MLS’s reg­is­tra­tions in the face of a player’s attempt to move to another league.

Even if Major League Soc­cer wanted to com­plete a deal — per­haps use some of the rumored-to-be £7 mil­lion offer (about $10.5 mil­lion U.S.) to aug­ment loses from a strike — would the Union acqui­esce and allow a sale? Even if it is in the best inter­est of Dono­van, it would not be in the best inter­est of the remain­ing play­ers to line the own­ers’ pock­ets at a time when the play­ers are walk­ing a picket line.

The easy solu­tion, should there be a work stop­page, would have Dono­van go to Ever­ton for a sec­ond loan stint. Whether that would be amenable to the Tof­fees is uncer­tain. They may have other buy­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the sum­mer, and with­out the option to buy their pre­ferred player, they may opt for the secu­rity of acquir­ing a sec­ond choice per­ma­nently rather than wait-out the tur­moil in MLS.

And all this assumes Major League Soc­cer would even con­sider let­ting Dono­van go. If a work stop­page hap­pens and MLS needs to engage in a new mar­ket­ing blitz to regain some of the league’s lost mar­ket share, it’s dif­fi­cult to image a bet­ter ful­crum to that cam­paign than Lan­don Donovan.

It is rea­son­able to think that Dono­van and Ever­ton want to make the deal hap­pen. In quotes, each have been respect­ful of MLS’s rights, but nei­ther have refrained from exult­ing their mutual admi­ra­tion. And Dono­van, of course, spent much of last season’s second-half openly dis­cussing a poten­tial move back to Europe, allud­ing to a con­flu­ence of fac­tors (per­for­mance, con­tract, per­sonal life, point in career) that made this the right time.

How­ever, Major League Soc­cer has its own set of motivations.

Dono­van signed a new con­tract with the league this off­sea­son, but few fail to remem­ber that the league held the option on him for 2010 (and 2011). Given the option of fight­ing (the per­ceived) good fight or tak­ing a pay raise and some secu­rity, Dono­van made the log­i­cal choice, signed the deal, but again handed his future over to MLS, who had all the lever­age in the nego­ti­a­tions: “You can sign this new offer, or we can keep you here until you’re almost 30 but just not pay you as much.”

But now Dono­van is about to come face-to-face with the down­side to that money. Whether he wants the deal to hap­pen has become irrel­e­vant. Major League Soc­cer now needs induce­ment to let him go, and while $10.5 mil­lion is more than a fair price objec­tively, objec­tiv­ity is point­less here. Major League Soc­cer has to look out for itself. As such, they will exert their con­trol over Dono­van how­ever suits them best — which is their right.

Though there are few other play­ers who are in Donovan’s sit­u­a­tion, the core issues that could inhibit a move to Ever­ton — a move that could cement his career’s legacy — are the same. Major League Soc­cer has set-up an entity that seeks to keep sta­bil­ity through con­trol­ling labor. The play­ers union sees rights granted to domes­tic ath­letes and for­eign soc­cer play­ers and wants a step toward equality.

Even when the acclaimed best player of a gen­er­a­tion has a chance to embark on a small piece of U.S. soc­cer his­tory, Major League Soc­cer will be able to exer­cise that control.

The need for con­trol (or, con­versely, the need for more free­dom) is the heart of this strug­gle, and caught up in it is the future of the generation’s iconic player.

It’s March 1st.  There’s no col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment, and Lan­don Dono­van is about to return to Los Ange­les with ques­tions sur­round­ing his sea­son and career.

• Another angle on the cur­rent state of nego­ti­a­tions (and how it affects the upcom­ing sea­son) is pro­vided by my part­ner Jeff Kas­souf at Set Piece Ana­lysts (though you may know him from Equal­izer Soc­cer):  What mind­set can the blue-collar play­ers be in as they pre­pare for the sea­son, given the uncer­tain­ties sur­round­ing an expired CBA?

Tagged as: Collective Bargaining, Everton, Landon Donovan, Los Angeles Galaxy