The Seattle Sounders are due to receive at least $9.55 million for simply participating in the Club World Cup that starts next month. For every tie the Sounders secure, they’ll get an extra $1 million, and if they win a game that would be worth an extra $2 million. If the Sounders manage to get out of the group stage, their total guaranteed pot will balloon to about $20 million.
No matter how you slice it, that’s a lot of money. Based on Sportico’s recent estimation, it would the equivalent of 12.5% to 20% of the Sounders’ annual revenue.
The Sounders have not said how they intend to spend that money. MLS rules stipulate that the winnings must be reinvested into the club, which could come in the form of anything from transfer fees to investing in the academy.
Players are guaranteed a cut of that money, as well, but not as much as most would likely consider fair. When MLS and the Players Association re-negotiated the CBA in 2021, the Club World Cup was not the 32-team, $1 billion prize pool event that it has now become. The tournament wasn’t even explicitly named in the CBA, but it does seem to be covered by Article 10.8, which addresses tournament bonus pools:
(v) Compulsory Tournament/Non-Compulsory Tournament: If an MLS Team or MLS receives prize money by virtue of the Team’s performance and/or participation in a Compulsory Tournament or Non-Compulsory Tournament (other than the tournaments set forth above i.e., USOC, Canadian Championship, CCL, Campeones Cup, Leagues Cup), Players competing in that tournament will receive the following:
(a) If the Team or MLS receives prize money, fifty percent (50%) of such prize money up to a maximum payment to the Players (collectively) of $1,000,000 per tournament.
By a simple reading of this clause, it would seem that each participating MLS team’s players will share $1 million among themselves. How the players decide to divvy that up is up to them, but all indications are that MLS isn’t willing to expand prize pool even if they achieve some of the add-on bonuses.
As you might expect, that’s not sitting real well with players.
“Some people say it’s bigger than the Champions League in Europe,” Sounders midfielder Albert Rusnák said this week. “We’re just thinking that all the things surrounding it — including bonuses — has to match that.
“We’re about to play a team that’s in the final of Champions League (Paris Saint Germain), another team that’s a giant club in Spain (Atletico Madrid), a huge club from Brazil (Botafogo). It’s the biggest stage, and I think all the things around it should match that.”
Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said he’s sympathetic to both sides. On one hand, he realizes that there’s a CBA that needs to be followed, but he can appreciate how the players feel left out.
“We understand where the players are coming from,” he said. “Does the union just have to do their job make the ask? Do the owners have to say ‘yes’? No, they don’t. I get the bigger picture.
“But I know the guys are excited to play. I think the fans that are going to come to the games, watch the games, they are going to be entertained. I’m trying to push that aside a little bit and make sure they focus on what they control, because control of controls is one of my favorite sayings.”
Once players get on the field, the competitive spirit will inevitably take over. But there’s a compromise here that seems pretty straightforward. The CBA may give the players limited recourse, but not giving the players a share of any performance bonuses seems unwise if the idea is for this to be a showcase tournament. Guaranteeing them a cut of that seems almost like a no-brainer.
“We’re hoping that everything matches and and it will be an amazing experience for us, for Miami, maybe for a LAFC, too, if they get there,” Rusnák said. “It would be huge if if we kind of left a good mark on it for the league. If we really represented the league well at the biggest stage, I think that could go a long way down the line and in the years to come.”
