Major League Soccer and its players came away with a sense of accomplishment after reaching a new collective bargaining agreement in February as the league was heading into its 25th season.
“I think coming out of February both sides felt good,” Seattle Sounders FC player representative Harry Shipp said. “It was this productive partnership where we took 18 months to figure out what was going on, what both sides needed, and we really worked to make common ground.”
Those positive vibes – from the days before the coronavirus outbreak essentially shut down organized sports around the globe in March – are largely gone for MLS, at least when it comes to the way players feel toward the league and ownership.
The MLS Players Association ratified a revised CBA this week that will allow the league to resume this summer with a tournament in Florida, but the union did so with bitter feelings about the strategies used by MLS. Specifically, players are upset about the league’s threat of a lockout that would have left them without salary and benefits during a pandemic that has had a devastating economic impact.
“We were open,” said Atlanta United FC defender Jeff Larentowicz, a member of the union’s executive board who has been in the league since 2005. “We wanted to make a collaborative process. We wanted to make it something that was good for everyone in an incredibly difficult circumstance.