Garber: MLS wants more star players

Hopefully more along the lines of Juan Pablo Angel and not David Beckham.

After all, if it’s more profitable clubs MLS wants it needs designated players who actually stick around to play more than a game or two here and there.

Here’s the story:

NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Soccer is looking to add stars and teams now that it has avoided a strike and agreed to a five-year labor contract.

“It’s in all of our best interests to ensure that we have star players that can help drive
interest in our league and grow attendance and ratings,” commissioner Don Garber said Tuesday. “Now that we’re past the CBA, we could sit down and we can tackle that issue.”

Los Angeles midfielder David Beckham, the league’s top attraction, will be sidelined for most if not all of this season with a torn Achilles’ tendon.

MLS has just four other star “designated players,” whose salaries don’t fully count against a team’s salary cap: New York forward Juan Pablo Angel, Seattle midfielder Freddie Ljungberg, Houston forward Luis Angel Landin and Toronto midfielder Julian de Guzman. The Galaxy’s Landon Donovan isn’t a DP but doesn’t fully count against the cap, either.

Each team has a designated player slot and can trade it, with no team able to keep more than two DPs at once. Most of the DP slots are open.

Barcelona’s Thierry Henry and Real Madrid’s Raul Gonzalez often are mentioned as possibilities for the Red Bulls.

MLS says Seattle and Toronto were the only profitable teams last year, when regular and postseason attendance averaged 16,391.

“Clearly you’re looking for a player that can be breakthrough figure locally and nationally, somebody that can give the team relevance in the local market against all competition but also give us respect throughout the international soccer community that proves that Major League Soccer is serious about building a professional soccer league that at one point can be competitive with the other leagues around the world,” Garber said. “You’re looking for somebody that can clearly move the needle on ticket sales and on sponsorship and on television ratings and get that buzz factor that we got with (Cuauhtemoc) Blanco and with David Beckham and a lesser extent but an important one with Juan Pablo Angel.”

Philadelphia, which plays Thursday’s MLS opener at Seattle, is the league’s 16th team.
Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, British Colombia, are set to join in 2011. Garber said he will reopen talks to add Montreal, possibly for 2012, and that Atlanta and owner Arthur Blank could join later.

“You can’t be a national league unless you have teams in the South,” he said.

Garber said this year’s MLS title game could be played in Toronto and new Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., which he said cost $250 million, was a top candidate to host in 2011 or beyond.

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