"Club World Cash Grab" and "Fair Share Now" brandished on their warmup shirts, Seattle Sounders players protested the upcoming FIFA Club World Cup ahead of their MLS game against Minnesota United.
The statement came less than a day after LAFC defeated Club América in a playoff match to determine the final Club World Cup participant. Frequently dubbed "The Most Expensive Soccer Match in North American History" given the financial incentives, LAFC defeated the Liga MX side in extra time earning a minimum of $9.55 million. A special one-off match was held after FIFA disqualified Club León for infringing on the body's multi-ownership rules.
Seattle is one of now three MLS teams partaking in the competition alongside Inter Miami and Saturday's playoff winner.
The MLS Player Association released a statement backing the Sounders players, further explaining an ongoing battle between them and the league.
“FIFA's new tournament plies 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 amounts of prize money to secure club and player participation. As a result, MLS will receive an unprecedented financial windfall. Despite this windfall, the league has refused to allocate a fair percentage of those funds to the players themselves,” the Players Association said.
The PA went on to explain that they have had private conversations with the league to, “discuss bonus terms,” but the league failed to bring together a reasonable proposal. The PA also called out MLS for “routinely asking them to deviate from the current collective bargaining agreement” saying they're “clinging to an out-of-date CBA provision and ignoring longstanding international standards on what players typically receive from FIFA prize money in global competitions.”
Calls for an improved match calendar are nothing new. European players frequently called for a better balance last year with Manchester City's Rodri going as far to say players were close to a strike.
The Club World Cup kicks off the same time as the Concacaf Gold Cup and will be followed by Leagues Cup later this summer. International teams had to build their Gold Cup rosters around competing CWC teams with the U.S. men's national team having to forgo selecting Tim Weah, Gio Reyna and Weston McKennie.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Seattle Sounders Players Protest FIFA Club World Cup, Call for Fair Share of Prize Money.
