The Loan Crisis In The MLS

Wall Street and the banks are not the only ones who seem to be suffering from loans, the MLS is flirting with disaster in the loan department. It seems more in more players in the MLS will be applying their trade in the off-season and the first half of the 2010 MLS regular season. While this does give a chance to get MLS regulars some international exposure, and fit for the upcoming World Cup. It is not in the league's best interest to loan out the league's best talent to bigger leagues during the beginning of the MLS season.

The first big MLS name to to go on loan was David Beckham when he went to AC Milan for the off-season. Beckham played with Milan from November to the end of the Italian Series A season in May. This caused a lot of controversy as many people suspected that Beckham did not want to return to the league, and that he was looking for a way out of MLS. The AC Milan loan controversy turned the LA Galaxy into a three-ring circus as players, fans, and management seemed to have their own opinion on their star play playing in the stories AC Milan club, instead of helping the Galaxy through the MLS regular season.

Now Beckham will be going on loan to AC Milan again in preparation for the 2010 World Cup, this time with a little bit less controversy as fans are getting used to it. However this is starting a startling trend in the league. The Chicago Fire's star player Mexican International Cauhtemoc Blanco will be going on loan to Mexican second-division club Veracruz. Blanco will be playing with Veracruz for the MLS off-season, and for the first part of the 2010 season.

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While their has not been any facts linked to the deal, rumor is that Seattle Sounder's Freddie Ljungberg will be heading to Europe on an off-season loan, or perhaps a permanent move. There has been no conformation of the Ljungberb deal but the fact still remains. It is not in the MLS's best interest to have their star players play elsewhere in the off-season and during the beginning of the regular season.

First off, I don't care what the reason is. It is not a good thing your star-players want to play somewhere else during the off-season. The fact that David Beckham has to go to Europe in order to stay fit for the English National Team is a slight against the league, stating that you have to go somewhere else in order to play World-Class Soccer (no matter how true that statement actually is). The idea of attracting these world-class type players to the league is to improve the league's overall quality. These players can not do that if they loan themselves out during the off-season and the beginning of the regular season. This year's MLS playoffs race came down to the final week, which sends the message that every games counts, and the slightest margins could determine who is in, and who is out of the post-season. Therefore it is not the best of ideas

The MLS needs to stop the practice of loaning out the league's star. It is a bad practice in the sense, that loaning players out to foreign clubs states that the MLS is not good enough for World-Class Soccer. Also the key-market players that the league has in order to attract fans and media attention can not be effective for the league when they are out playing in Europe. In all business it is not a good idea to sell your best assets to rival companies, and it defiantly is not a good practice for the MLS to loan out it's best players, and have them miss out on MLS games that their loyal fans come out to see. Cut out the loaning please MLS, your fans will appreciate it when the league's star players take all the league game seriously.