Sounders players protest MLSs Club World Cup cash grab, fair player payments ahead of match

MLS players are not letting the fight over Club World Cup bonuses go away. The Seattle Sounders held a player protest over the issue Sunday ahead of their match with Minnesota United, wearing shirts that read, “World Cup Cash Grab.”“FAIRSHARE NOW” was written across the back of the shirts. Every member of the Sounders squad wore the shirts during warmups. The shirts were in protest to MLS players’ concerns over the cut of bonuses they’ll receive from their participation in the upcoming Club World Cup, set to begin later this month in the United States. Inter Miami, the Sounders and LAFC will all represent MLS in the 32-team tournament, and FIFA announced in March that MLS teams would get $9.5 million alone just for participating. There are also additional bonuses for teams when they win or tie, setting up the possibility for the MLS clubs in the tournament to come away with large sums of money from the Club World Cup. However, a clause in the current MLS collective bargaining agreement — Article 10.8 — limits how much players get from non-MLS tournaments, which caps it at 50 percent of the tournament prize or up to $1 million.“The MLSPA and all MLS players stand united with the Seattle Sounders players who tonight demanded a fair share of the FIFA Club World Cup prize money.FIFA’s new tournament piles on to players’ ever-increasing workload without regard to their physical well-being.

In order to seize this additional calendar territory, FIFA had to commit historic amount of prize money to secure club and player participation.As a result, MLS will receive an unprecedented financial windfall,” the MLS Players Association said in a statement in support of the Sounders’ protest. “Despite the windfall, the league has refused to allocate a fair percentage of those funds to the players themselves.

For months, the players have privately and respectfully invited the league to to discuss bonus terms, yet MLS has failed to bring forward a ...