Football
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MLS makes revised CBA offer in players' union's favor, source says

Major League Soccer made a revised offer on Wednesday in the MLS Players Union's favor, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations, as the two sides continue to make some progress on a new collective bargaining agreement with the start of the regular season just two days away.

Free agency has long been one of the major sticking points, with the MLSPU threatening to go on strike if the new CBA didn't provide freedom of movement for at least some players when their contracts expired.

It remains unclear which of the three provisions to make a player a free agent -- years of service, age or increase in salary -- has been altered under MLS' revised offer.

Whether that will be enough to get a deal done is also unknown. Still in question are other big issues -- the minimum salary, the size of the overall salary cap and the length of the new CBA.

On Tuesday, a source said the league's proposal contained a form of free agency for the first time. This was believed to be a significant concession, though its initial offers were highly restrictive.

The first reported proposal granted free agency only to players who were 32 years old and had 10 years of service in MLS. Such requirements would have applied to a single player in the league, Houston Dynamo midfielder Brad Davis. A revised offer later on Tuesday reduced those requirements to 28 years old and eight years of service, which would have affected around 5 percent of the league's players.

That offer also contained a provision that salary increases for free agents would be capped at 10 percent.

A source said on Tuesday that the league had offered a CBA length of eight years, three years longer than the previous deal that was agreed to in 2010. That timeline would line up with the current length of MLS' television broadcast deal.

Given the acceleration in revenues MLS has experienced in the past five years, a longer contract favors the owners, as it will allow them to contain costs for a longer period of time.

Talks are expected to last throughout the day.

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