Major League Soccer (MLS) has long taken the brunt of criticism for the clandestine way in which it operates, along with the intentional effort to hide the way in which players are acquired. However, on April 24th, Mark Abbot announced that Major League Soccer would be changing that.
"Don and I had a little chat about the function of transparency in our league so we decided to release the allocation rules that we thought we were going to use this season. Now, it should be noted that these rules are already out of date and we do not plan on releasing the new updated rules. Also, it should note that pretty much everything is ready to be chucked out a window when we get a chance to sign a set group of players that we like to call the 'untouchable 5'. Basically anything goes if Zlatan or Ronaldo decides he wants to sign with an MLS team. In the case of a signing by any one of them, each MLS owner will send a proxy to fight for them in the AT&T Arena of Death. Although to be honest, we already know where they are going, right?"
Abbot went on to say that the player acquisition rules that they had available were drawn up in the waning moments of 2014, but two weeks later they decided to change them. Then two weeks later they changed them again, making the set of rules they are releasing the old, old rules and not really at all relevant to the situation at hand.
"We actually had a clause put in where we had to call all new players a homophobic slur, but that was added in by some of our more conservative owners and we had to take that out. There was also a point where we tried to tie each player acquisition to an established fast food franchise in the area so that we could bring more revenue into the league. Then at one point we wanted to award players to a franchise by having the owners do a chocolate milk chug. Last one to spew gets a player. All of these were part of several different edits of 'the rules' as we know them. At this point, we cobbled together something from season 1, season 12 and season 17, with a bit of 'road rules v real word' style competition for added bonus. This season Garth Lagerwey will take on Anthony Precourt in a game of gladiator style joust for the ability to use $100,000 in allocation money and a lifetime supply of Snapple for the front office staff. It'll be amazing."
With Abbot and Garber changing the rules as they go along, TNN asked whether any fan could trust that they were telling the truth.
"Well, obviously the answer to that is no. I mean, when someone has already tried to deceive you purposefully and repeatedly over the course of many years, why would you trust that what we say NOW is the truth. Wait, there are people who do? Oh man, my job just got a lot easier."