Already arrested, jailed, charged and suspended by their club, three Toronto FC players could face further discipline after a drunken brawl in Houston.

Major League Soccer and the MLS Players Union are investigating the incident involving defender Miguel Aceval, midfielder Luis Silva and forward Nick Soolsma outside a downtown nightclub early Monday.

“The commissioner has the discretion to discipline players for off the field behaviour,” said Will Kuhns, a spokesman with MLS, which holds the contracts of the league’s players.

“The most important thing here is to gather all the facts, so that’s what we’re doing — the league, the players union and the team,” he said in an interview.

TFC head coach Paul Mariner told TFC TV the trio was not with the side for Wednesday’s match in Houston “because the investigation is going on.

“Until the investigation is complete, that’s about all I can tell you,” added Mariner, who became TFC’s seventh head coach in six seasons when he replaced Aron Winter on June 7. He lost his first match in charge, 2-0 at Sporting Kansas City Saturday, before the club went to Houston on Sunday.

Bob Foose, executive director of the union, said in an email “we have no comment at this time” because the investigation is continuing.

The trio was arrested early Monday morning after police responded to a call about a fight and a large group of people gathered in the parking lot of a downtown nightclub. The crowd was dispersing as officers arrived but the three Reds were “pretty intoxicated and belligerent,” police said.

They were the only three on the scene arrested. They were charged with a Class C misdemeanour for public intoxication and bailed out of a downtown jail by teammate Julian de Guzman, who put up a $267 bond for each.

They are due back in court on Aug. 2.

At least three MLS players have been arrested and charged this season.

New York Red Bulls defender Wilman Conde was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer last month in an incident were he was said to be “very intoxicated and belligerent” to those responding to a noise complaint at 5:30 a.m. at his New Jersey apartment.

Houston Dynamo’s Tyler Deric was Tasered and arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer and teammate Warren Creavalle charged with interfering with a public servant in an incident outside a club in February.

To date, MLS has not brought any further sanction against those players.

“I think it doesn’t matter whether it’s basketball, ice hockey or whatever sport,” Mariner, a former England international who starred in the country’s top league, told The Canadian Press. “I’ve been a professional athlete myself and you’re held to a higher level of order because you’re in the spotlight and you’re living in a privileged position of being a so-called elite athlete.

“But sometimes people make poor choices and we’ve got to get to the bottom of it. I don’t want to jump to any conclusion myself but obviously there was something going on because the police were involved. So I just took the action that I did so that we could just concentrate on (the game).”

Mariner said there was no curfew Sunday because it was a day off.

“I just told the players about the following day (of training). I just thought that they would respond to that. And most of them did. But it looks like we had — well, I’m not going to use the words that just came into my mind, but some people chose not to be on their best behaviour, let’s put it that way.”

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