The MLS Players Association and Major League Soccer announced a five-year Collective Bargaining Agreement on Thursday, three weeks before the start of the league’s 25th season. The negotiation includes a 37-percent salary increase, expanded free agency and mandatory charter flights.
“Overall, we’re tremendously happy with where we got to,” MLSPA executive director Bob Foose said during a conference call Thursday. “In CBA negotiations you never get absolutely everything you want, [but] players have secured an agreement that will significantly change what it means to be an MLS player and lead us into the future.”
Foose and Atlanta United midfielder Jeff Larentowicz, both Brown University graduates, played key roles in crafting a CBA deal that'll extend from 2020 to 2024.