MLS and the Mexican Federation: A Beautiful Friendship

Rafa Mar­quez and his mates play as many games in the US as on Mex­i­can Soil these days/ Photo from esmas.com

Many I speak to won­der some­time qui­etly why the Mex­i­can National Team seem to play all its friend­lies on US soil and not in its home coun­try. These same peo­ple won­der what affect this has on the US National Team, as their big rival often plays to big­ger and more vocal crowds. The truth is that the Mex­i­can National Fed­er­a­tion (FMF) and Soc­cer United Mar­ket­ing (SUM), the mar­ket­ing arm of Major League Soc­cer have a com­plex mar­ket­ing agreement.

Many times in the last few years on the very same day the United States National Team plays in front of half empty sta­di­ums some­where else in the USA, the Mex­i­can National Team is play­ing in front of a ruckus full sta­dium. That alone should not be alarm­ing: After all the Mex­i­can National Team right­fully enjoys more sup­port in the United States than does the US National Team. This is due in large part to the mas­sive Mexican-American pop­u­la­tion in the states. What should be alarm­ing is who mar­kets and makes a big profit off the gate at these matches: Soc­cer United Mar­ket­ing, aka MLS. What’s even more inter­est­ing is that the Mex­i­can League, arguably the best in the world out­side of Europe deter­mined two Copa Lib­er­ta­do­ras spots not on its league table or play­offs but on a two week tour­na­ment held at MLS venues mar­keted by MLS, known as Interliga. Most Mex­i­can coaches and play­ers right­fully dis­like the event. It takes place in between the Clausura and Aper­tura tour­na­ments, when the play­ers of the Mex­i­can clubs should be rest­ing and recharg­ing their bat­ter­ies. But the tour­na­ment is a great boon finan­cially both to the FMF and MLS. Interliga takes on a sig­nif­i­cance it should not since the tour­na­ment is not even played on Mex­i­can soil. For what­ever rea­son FIFA and COMNEBOL have allowed Mex­ico to use this sham of an event which sim­ply is designed to help fill MLS and FMF cof­fers to deter­mine par­tic­i­pants in the world’s sec­ond most pres­ti­gious club competition.

Major League Soccer’s mar­ket­ing rela­tion­ship with the Mex­i­can Fed­er­a­tion is from what I can tell unique to the world of Foot­ball. Can you imag­ine the French Ligue Un enter­ing into a sim­i­lar rela­tion­ship with the Mali or Alger­ian Foot­ball fed­er­a­tion both of whom have large immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties in France. Or how about the Ger­man Bun­desliga enter­ing into a sim­i­lar rela­tion­ship with the Turk­ish Fed­er­a­tion due to the mas­sive Turk­ish pop­u­la­tion in Ger­many? How about the Pre­mier League enter­ing into a rela­tion­ship with the Aus­tralian or Indian Fed­er­a­tions to pro­mote those national teams on UK soil?

The obvi­ous answer to this is that MLS is not as finan­cially healthy as they claim. From my van­tage point Major League Soc­cer was strug­gling with bad atten­dance and an even worse per­cep­tion between the con­trac­tion year of 2001 and the sign­ing of David Beck­ham in 2007. The result was the need for MLS to branch out and stay afloat in some man­ner. The shrewd­ness of Don Gar­ber can­not be under­es­ti­mated. His busi­ness and mar­ket­ing smarts have kept MLS in busi­ness. But as time goes on and MLS is more estab­lished as a busi­ness entity, the rela­tion­ship becomes more exten­sive and wor­ry­ing. As men­tioned above Mex­ico has not played a friendly at home in some time: in fact the last home Mex­i­can friendly not held on Amer­i­can soil was prior to the 2006 World Cup. In addi­tion, the con­co­cated Superliga Tour­na­ment between FMF and MLS sides has net­ted decent TV rat­ings and enter­tain­ing foot­ball but has found itself to be lit­tle more than a cash grab. At the same time MLS due to this tour­na­ment is forced to play right through qual­i­fiers involv­ing the US National Team, in some cases play­ing matches at the exact same time. Now this for cer­tain would not be tol­er­ated in any other coun­try on the planet. For exam­ple, last year as the United States began Copa Amer­ica play, MLS was kick­ing off a match on ESPN 2. Last Sep­tem­ber as the US played Brazil at Sol­dier Field, DC United and New Eng­land were play­ing live on Tele­fu­tura. Most recently, The United States played a qual­i­fier against Bar­ba­dos while DC United and San Jose did bat­tle on Tele­fu­tura. MLS’ sched­ule is not flex­i­ble for inter­na­tional dates because its top teams take more than a month off from MLS com­pe­ti­tion because of Superliga, an enter­tain­ing tour­na­ment no doubt, but one that is prov­ing to be merely a cash cow.

A strain between MLS and US Soc­cer has been reported in some place. Oth­ers tell me the rela­tion­ship is fine. One thing is for sure: MLS, the US/Canadian domes­tic league has a stronger more devel­oped rela­tion­ship at least out­wardly with the Mex­i­can Fed­er­a­tion than with its own fed­er­a­tions. While the need to keep MLS afloat dic­tated the form­ing of this rela­tion­ship at this point its more counter pro­duc­tive from my van­tage point to US Soc­cer and the suc­cess of the US National Team long term. More­over, as the rela­tion­ship becomes closer and closer at what point do FIFA and CONCACAF become alarmed. It’s not unusual for clubs to part­ner with other clubs across national bound­aries. But from what I can tell this is by far the most estab­lished rela­tion­ship between a national fed­er­a­tion and a domes­tic league in another coun­try. The sim­ple moti­va­tion is money for both par­ties. What a beau­ti­ful friendship.