MLS Wants to Test Instant Replay in USL

What does this say about USL and it’s relationship with MLS?

Thursday’s Major League Soccer SuperDraft saw Commissioner Don Garber reiterate MLS’s interest in pursuing the use of instant replay to assist referees. However, his comments went further than simply stating interest, announcing that MLS is in discussions about testing instant replay in USL in the 2016 season. MLS is apparently not ready to run trials of instant replay, but is looking closely at the idea of using USL to experiment with instant replay so that MLS can evaluate it for it’s own use.

Garber said “I think there’s a bit of a movement for instant replay. I’m leading the charge. We’ve put up our hand and said to those folks that are looking at it internationally that we’d be happy to test it here, even in MLS games. That’s not going to happen in 2016, but we are pretty focused on ensuring that we will have a test in the USL.”

I reached out to the USL about Garber’s comments, and was told “there have been discussions between MLS and the USL regarding the potential use of instant replay in the USL. However, there has been no final decision made at this point on its implementation for the 2016 season.”

In 2013 MLS and the USL announced a multi-year partnership “ designed to enhance the development of professional players in North America.” Over the past couple years, the relationship between USL and MLS has grown stronger, to the point that all 20 MLS teams either field a reserve team in USL or have an affiliation with a USL club. For the 2016 season, there will be 11 USL clubs operated by MLS franchises, out of a total of 29 clubs.

By many accounts, the partnership has so far been a great success for both the USL and MLS. The USL has grown rapidly as a league, and MLS clubs have been able to use their reserve or affiliated clubs to enhance their youth development programs, helping increase the number of homegrown players in MLS and, ideally, improving the number of quality professional soccer players developed in the United States and Canada.

On the other hand, some aren’t perfectly happy with how the relationship is working out. Despite the growth that USL has seen in part because of the relationship with MLS, some feel that the relationship to MLS has made USL into a minor soccer league, similar to baseball’s minor league system. This feeling is especially strong with those connected to USL clubs that are independently operated. While this is great for player development, it’s not necessarily great for those fans of independently operated clubs like Sacremento Republic FC, Lousiville City FC, St. Louis FC, and others who want to see their clubs grow into something bigger than a 3rd division, minor league team.

MLS announcing that it wants to use USL as a testing ground for instant replay only serves to further that feeling. It says to USL “we don’t take you seriously as a real league, we see you as a tool to help build and grow our own league.”

I asked on Twitter how USL fans felt about Garber’s comments.

Here’s a few of the responses I received.

Most of the responses fell somewhere along those lines. Most seemed to feel that if replay helps improve officiating, they’d be okay with it, but that they don’t the perception that MLS is treating the USL like the minor leagues, or “little brother.”

This is where the relationship between MLS and the USL is a bit messy, because you end up in a situation where organizations within the league have competing ambitions. Teams that are operated by MLS clubs are there primarily to develop players for the MLS sides. Teams that are operated independently are there presumably to win games, win trophies, and hopefully one day make it to the top level, either by growing enough to be able to buy in to MLS, or in a possible eventual system of promotion and relegation. I’m not saying that the MLS reserve sides don’t want to win. I am confident that every player, coach, and other staff working with MLS reserve sides in the USL wants to win every game and wants to win the trophy at the end of the season. But, when it comes down to it, the goal of their organization is to develop players for their MLS team.

If the USL wants to be a reserve or minor league for Major League Soccer, that’s fine. However, given that multiple clubs in USL have stated their ambition to move up to MLS, it is clear that not every organization in USL wants to be a minor league for MLS. Decisions like the one to test instant replay in USL (before implementing it in MLS) only further perpetuate the idea that USL is a minor league in the United States.

To be clear, USL fills a need in the soccer landscape of the United States. Within the U.S. soccer pyramid there needs to be a D3 league. Though their stated ambition is to be sanctioned as D2, for now, USL fills the D3 spot. The lower divisions of any national soccer system are vitally important to the strength of the game for many reasons. I do not want to suggest that USL should be unhappy existing as a lower division league. What I want to question, is whether the USL wants to be an independent, lower division league, or whether the the league wants to be viewed as a minor league to MLS, similar to baseball’s minor league system.

Whichever USL wants to be, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. However, decisions like the proposed testing of instant replay in USL continue to demonstrate that MLS views the USL as its personal version of AAA, and there is undoubtedly a sense of frustration among some USL fans as to how that reflects on their league and the teams they support.

With Garber also saying this week that St. Louis and Sacremento are leading the pack in terms of the next cities for MLS expansion, perhaps there will come a point when all the clubs with higher ambition leave the USL for MLS and the USL is a league made up entirely of MLS reserve sides. Either way, this is an important period for U.S. soccer. The USL, MLS, and even NASL, NPSL and the numerous other regional leagues are undergoing rapid change, and the next few years will go a long way to determining the long term future of the soccer landscape in the United States.