MLS Discovery Rights: What are they, how do they work, what they mean for the future of Kevin de Bruyne

Due to the major football leagues as a wage ceiling league, there are many alignment mechanisms which are different from those generally observed in the world football game, to have to use general funds to buy players and buy wages to have a project for players who leave the university. Mechanisms like this are standard for American sports fans because each league has quirks that accompany it, but due to the global scope of MLS and its place on the world football market, more people are starting to find out more about these quirks.

Whoever came a lot since players like Marco Reus and Lionel Messi came in the League are the discovery rights and the list of discoveries.

So what do they want to say?

What are the discovery rights?

This existed since the training of the League in 1996 and allows a team to list up to five players who are not under contract with MLS or attached to another assignment mechanism. These players cannot be current MLS players, players who have played in MLS before, eligible players or free agents eligible for the project or at home, as well as some other stipulations. A team can add or delete anyone from their list at any time, and there is no limit to the number of players who can be signed via this mechanism.

If several clubs want to add the same player to this list, that with a complaint on a previous date will have the right to the player, but if they were added the same day, the club with the lowest points per game will have priority.

Rights movement

If a club deletes someone from their discovery list, another club can add them, which was the case with Kevin de Bruyne. The Belgian was on the San Diego FC list, but when they had to reduce their list of seven to five players (the expansion teams are entitled to two additional players until the compliance of the alignment), Inter Miami then added the Belgian to their list. Chicago fire would be interested and are the favorites to sign it As Inter Miami already has their three designated players awarded. Another way to move the rights of a player is that a team can offer $ 50,000 in gam in exchange for the right to sign a player. At that time, the team had to accept money and transmit their rights or make the player a real offer.

This can lead to negotiations between the teams, this is how Marco Reus' rights ended up costing $ 400,000 in Los Angeles which still represents the highest amount paid for discovery rights. Reus would have liked to join the Galaxy on Charlotte when Dortmund's departure, but since Charlotte made a real offer, they did not have to accept the initial offer, which led to negotiations where they had a lever effect.

What could come next?

Of course, the Reus situation leads to the question of whether Charlotte had not reached an agreement and that he was not authorized to sign with the galaxy? This is something that could end up being a bad look for the league, but these types of scenarios are also on the MLS radar in the future.

“We are examining things that will not only rationalize it, but will considerably reduce the conflict that occurs among the teams, who both seem to think that they should have the discovery rights to a player, and which has been put in our agenda for this year by the sports competition committee,” said the MLS EVP of strategy and relations with players, Todd Durbin. “We are looking at things like … having a kind of fixed compensation that moves between the teams, so there is no friction, and perhaps reducing the number of players who could really be discoverable.”