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While many of you no doubt agree that the tactics of certain teams are certainly not “the beautiful game”, if any of you are an MLS front office type, it is likely best for your bank account if you don’t actually say it. Kevin Payne of DC United made that mistake and now has to fork over $5,000 to MLS for comments “detrimental to the public image of the league.”
EDITORIAL: Our view? MLS needs to stop punishing people such as Payne, or John Carver when he was in Toronto, or Jason Kreis for frank and honest comments. This is a league that needs MORE discussion and more spicy comments NOT less. MLS you are not the NFL. Soccer news the world over thrives on coaches, managers, owners and even players having a go at other teams for the way they play or run their organization. Slapping $5,000 fines on anyone who steps out of line from the “It’s all great, we’re one big happy family.” MLS party line is not the way forward. We are a much more sophisticated and selective audience than the one which you thought we were years ago. We watch leagues around the world where Kevin Payne’s comments wouldn’t even raised an eyebrow and find it laughable that you would think frank and honest discussion detrimental to the public image of the league.
What really IS detrimental is creating a climate in which everyone from players to owners are afraid of criticizing anyone else around the league which leads to boring stories, nearly no “water cooler” conversation between games and during the off season and a league with nothing compelling to write about off the pitch. Fining one of your own does nothing to create more fans of the game, nor does it do anything to enhance an already soccer savvy fanbase, nor does it cover over the problems the league has with quality of play. All it does is create a climate of fear. And a climate of fear is the most detrimental thing of all. It’s hard to take a league seriously when it treats some of its best people as well as its fans and supporters as children.
Agree or Disagree with us? Sound off in the comments.
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On this one, I disagree. He’s basically slamming his product, and that product isn’t the NFL. This will actually affect ticket purchases. “Our league is boring, but our team will play attractive soccer,” is bullshit, since the “attractiveness” of season tickets is getting to see the rest of the league he speaks poorly of.
Arguing about US Open stuff was juicy. Arguing and jockeying amongst your competitors gets people excited. This is the opposite, and should be snuffed out.
If you say it enough, people will believe it, true or not. This isn’t something you want repeated from a “credible” source, true or not.
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Agreed. This just proves that MLS PR have no clue what they’re doing. A business degree and a television does not qualify anyone to make media policies. These people are media virgins.
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I agree with most everything in the editorial. I have convinced some of my EPL loving friends to watch MLS and stuff like this fine make the league look petty and small. It’s really why some of those people call the league “Mickey Mouse”.
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He’s dressed like an idiot. DC United might want to think about giving this guy the chop, especially since his comments were directed at his own team’s failure to make the MLS playoffs…again.
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No offense to DC United fans. Your city has a very honorable tradition…but its embarassing to have a guy like Kevin Payne in your front office.
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MLS is too small a league to be as boring as the NFL.
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Why should anyone be embarrassed? He’s right. Maybe he shouldn’t have said it but there are a lot of teams that take that strategy (as well as heavy fouling) and it ruins the game.
The MLS is going nowhere if half the league is simply playing not to lose.
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This is how they have us in Houston, refering to the guy who got slammed by Dominic on Glenn Davies’s “Soccer Hour Show”.
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I think that normally soccer-averse fans will respect the honesty and regard it as a welcome departure from the grating beautiful game rhetoric that we’re all supposed to lap up.
On the other hand, I despise coaches and administrators who presume to judge the aesthetics of their opponents.
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Fined for telling the truth!.. Way to go MLS. Nice one.
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Just another mistake by MLS in long line of shitty amateurism.
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The fact that Payne got fined $5,000 means that MLS equates Payne’s comments with David Beckham’s challenge of a fan to enter the field during halftime of the Galaxy-Milan friendly. That equation, in itself, is ridiculous and asinine. What Beckham did was far more damaging to the image of the league.
Besides, Garber did NOTHING when Cuauhtemoc Blanco clocked a couple of people (including a security guard) during the U.S. Open Cup game against United — which was far worse than what either Beckham or Payne did. Yes, it was an Open Cup game, not an MLS game, but that’s merely a convenient excuse for Garber to sit on his hands. The last time I checked, both the Fire and United are league members.
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and then they tell you we have “freedom of speech” ? lol what a joke
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He is right to say something honest in a league that still had games with gridiron lines on the field. It was headache-inducing watching the NJRB/TFC match last weekend, the puddles and the score notwithstanding. Thank god (or whoever) those will be gone for good now, I think it’s a huge step for the league.
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well, a small part of his job is to promote and support a certain growing and fragile league called major league soccer and it doesnt help attendance and appeal in this country when our very own staffers say insulting and stupid remarks….yea fine is stupid, but i now know why DC didnt make the playoffs!
im jus playin, i like DC
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Football is NOT a product! It is much more than that to the supporters. No one goes ape for Pepsi like they do for one of their teams. When will these unashamed capitalists stop looking at every club as a “franchise” and every city as a “market”? And just like the corporate cultures that dictate etiquette amongst it’s “associates”, freedom of speech in MLS is dealt with in the harshest of ways. It’s one man’s opinion, WHO CARES??? If DC United and the League are so damned worried about what it’s employees SAY it just shows how fragile the entire organization really is. Pathetic.
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