The head of the MLS Players Union indicated he has mixed emotions about the league's introduction of more Targeted Allocation Money, or TAM.

TAM is basically a mechanism for reducing a player's hit on the salary cap. MLS announced earlier this week that it was giving each team an additional $800,000 of TAM to apply to player salaries during the 2016 season, and another $800,000 in 2017. This is on top of the $500,000 the league gave to teams last year.

TAM can be used in one of two ways. First, a club can use TAM to reduce a new signing's salary cap impact, provided they make above the Designated Player threshold of $457,500 per year, but less than $1 million. The same approach can be used with existing Designated Players so that they no longer count as a DP, so long as a team signs a new Designated Player in the process.

TAM is different from General Allocation Money, which can be used to reduce the cap hit of any player on its roster. All told, MLS will be increasing its investment in player salaries over the next two years by $32 million.

"We're certainly happy that MLS is spending more on players," said Bob Foose, the executive director of the MLSPU. "It's exactly what we always knew and always said that they needed to do."

But Foose said he finds the TAM system to be overly restrictive and complex in a way that is "unnecessary and frankly counterproductive."

"I think that the TAM funds should have simply been added to the salary budget and clubs should be allowed to spend them as they want to spend them within the context of how each club approaches building a team," he said. "At this point in the league it's just not necessary. I think it's counterproductive to be so micromanaged and so complex."

The league has made no secret of the fact that those funds will be concentrated on those players at the higher end of the MLS pay scale, with the intent being to increase overall player quality. The salary budget, which next year will be $3.66 million per team, still has to be spread out among 20 senior roster players. (Teams are allowed a maximum of 28 players, but the salaries of the last eight players don't count against the salary cap.)