In the sense that MLS has been buffeted by the storms of public opinion over its historical lack of transparency, the 2015 roster rule roll-out had its shares of positives. There are still loopholes that need closing. What, for instance, is to prevent a club from claiming a player via discovery and refusing to sell his rights to an interested bidder? Unclear.

At least we know more now. We don’t know everything. But we know more. It isn’t enough, but at the very least it’s something. I encourage you to read Matt Pentz’s interview with J. Todd Durbin in the Seattle Times. It at least sounds as though self determination among top players included in the allocation order is gone. Whether that’s truly the case or not, time will reveal.

But there are still some major questions. Namely the litmus for how players are chosen for the allocation list. And, to be more specific, how U.S. youth national teamers are selected.

We know generalities. This is the appropriate rule provision laid out in the recently released regulations.

The Allocation Process is the mechanism used to determine which MLS Club has first priority to acquire a player listed on the Allocation Ranking List. The list will consist of (i) select U.S. Men’s National Team players, (ii) elite youth U.S. National Team players, or (iii) former MLS players returning to MLS after joining a non-MLS club for a transfer fee greater than $500,000.

That’s lovingly vague, isn’t it? At the very least, it’s open about its vagaries. “Select” U.S. Men’s National Team players. “Elite” youth U.S. National Team players. Those words are vast oceans in which many boats can float. Which ones the league chooses seems utterly up to its own whims.

Sports Illustrated’s Brian Staus reported the above list will only change if an “elite U.S. youth national team player turns 18 or graduates from the U.S. Soccer Residency Program in Bradenton, Florida, and is deemed eligible for the list.” Again, who’s doing the deeming here is unknown, but it appears MLS is setting the template now in hopes this populates at a continual rate as we go. If Bradenton continues churning out classes and YNT players continue aging (a wild idea natural human law supports), this should grow every year. How much it grows is up to MLS, since it committed itself to only choosing a fraction of these players.

Here’s the first list the league pushed out with the impending ratification of the new CBA.

I’d like to hone in on the youth players here, because it seems as though there’s a veiled method to MLS’s madness here. Seems being the operative word.

With the notable exception of Rubio Rubin, each of the youth players chosen for the allocation list has a reason to leave Europe. Junior Flores’ time with BVB has never gotten particularly close to transitioning out of neutral. Julian Green has no future with Bayern Munich, and his loan to Hamburg has been the picture of disaster. Marc Pelosi’s path up the ladder for Liverpool may well have been permanently derailed by injury. Shaq Moore, who just turned 18 last fall, doesn’t even have a club. Only Rubin seems entrenched in his Dutch foxhole at Utrecht, where he’s been playing and improving. But it doesn’t hurt to put a top shelf player on the wish list.

From that aspect, MLS appears to be going about this as pragmatically as possible. These aren’t the five best U.S. YNT prospects, but they’re probably five of those most acquireable from the league’s standpoint. And that makes sense.

What’s harder to figure is how the league plans on wooing players tied to an allocation order. This is that order, as of May 1.

In some instances, this won’t be a problem. Some players, particularly YNT players with less leverage, won’t care where they’re allocated. And in some instances the order may sync a player with his club of choice anyway. Let’s say Julian Green wants to go back to Florida. Orlando City may simply have the No. 1 spot when Green decides to become a big shot in MLS. The same could happen with Junior Flores and D.C. United.

And let’s not forget the trade option. If Orlando City wanted Green badly enough, they could offer the Earthquakes money, players, draft picks.

But what if those things don’t happen? What if the Quakes aren’t interested in trading away their top allocation spot, and Green wants to play in MLS but has no desire to ply his trade in the Bay Area? What then?

The allocation list’s history is born from American sports in which there is no competition. The NFL can use things like waiver orders because it’s an entirely self-contained system. Players don’t have options beyond it, so the league can afford to stack its players into neat orders. The reasons MLS use this mechanism are obvious – financial prudence, for one – but they don’t help when the league strikes out to add players with enough bargaining clout to determine their own path. Unlike the NFL, they can simple move elsewhere. Where they can play a part in determining their own club.

Green’s visibility is undeniable, and at least from a top youth talent perspective MLS would and should jump at his interest (imagined as it is in this space). Whether or not he becomes the embodiment of his own hype train or simply a frail shadow of it, at this point he’s a draw. A 19-year old reared in one of the world’s top academies choosing MLS in the pregnant dawn of his career is a strong statement. At least as far as this being a “league of choice” is concerned, this is a marketable moment.

But if all the aforementioned scenarios are true – Green wants to play in MLS but cannot find his way around the allocation process – what then? Does MLS snap its own rules again to fit in a player who doesn’t fit them? Or does it simply lose out on a hot young prospect because of its own rules tangle? MLS has made great headlines out of its desire to be a league of choice, but what if the choices stop at MLS HQ?

Questions worth asking.

MLS needs to go in one of two directions on this. Either abolish the allocation order and make the more democratic discovery claims the end-all for foreign signings, or hold hard and fast to the allocation and rid itself entirely of work-arounds. To continue to live in this opaque viscera between worlds is to invite criticism the league can no longer afford.