WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

Talk about some bad times in Toronto right now. They will be missing nine players tomorrow to international duty and are looking to sign players to one-day contracts to fill their roster. In the mean time they did petition to Major League Soccer to re-schedule tomorrow’s game with Chivas USA to another date.

Chivas was cool with it, but the league wasn’t.

An MLS spokesman stated the league did not want to set a precedent by re-scheduling and felt it was unfair to other teams that might be missing players.

The more I think about this the more I start to feel bad for Toronto. Now had this only been one or two players it wouldn’t be an issue or even a thought to think Toronto would be in the wrong by petitioning this re-scheduling. But since they are missing NINE players it makes things very tough for a team in a league that doesn’t have enough depth to begin with anyways.

Still, the issue remains the same, is that the league’s continued insistence on playing a full MLS schedule on an international fixture date. MLS deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis told media this week that the league is looking hard at trying to work around international fixture dates but that the limited number of available dates makes avoiding them all impossible.

For a year that is as close as it has ever been in terms of the playoff race, wouldn’t it be wise to let teams have a level playing field? I get that the schedules are tough to make but let’s be honest they aren’t made very well as it stands right now. The league wants to be known on an international stage but they continue to work their teams in a frenzy when they don’t have adequate roster limits and the right amount of salary cap space.

Hopefully this kind of thing will get a serious look at this offseason and the league will work hard to increase roster size and salary cap space for each club. I know the money issue is easier said than done but if they want to be ‘major league’, they need to act like it.