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...is MLS's continuing willingness to bend the rules to help clubs from "major markets" (i.e. L.A. and N.Y.). Back in the day when clubs were allowed only one Designated Player, sleight-of-hand was allowed to let the Galaxy keep both Donovan and Beckham. Since then, the limit has been increased to three DPs per club, but L.A. already had their three, so MLS allowed the league-leading side to sign Keane as a "temporary fourth" DP at the deadline, as long as they unloaded one of the others within a few days.
I know Don Garber is convinced that the route to a more-prominent league is to have big-name, championship-winning teams in L.A. and N.Y. (and I'd have to say his obsession with getting a second N.Y. team just so there can once again be a franchise named "New York Cosmos" -- and can you imagine the favoritism they'll get? -- approaches the ludicrous), but I wish he'd take some lessons from what happened to the old NASL and that league's Cosmos: as soon as they created a guaranteed-championship-winning powerhouse, the rest of the league started dropping off the map, and wound up folding within a few years. Why should anyone want to support their local team in Kansas City or San Jose if it becomes clear that only New York and Los Angeles teams will be able to challenge for the top...and that, should they falter, the league will "put its thumb on the scales" to make sure they're allowed to regain their dominance in ways that would never be allowed for other clubs?
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