Unfair labor practices
In the interests of avoiding excessive idiosyncracy, I am keeping soccer-related blogs to a minimum. But a recent event in Britian warrants a quick blog. Bobby Convey, a 20-year-old budding superstar with DC United of Major League Soccer and the United States National Team, was recently transferred to Tottenham Hotspur, a team in England's top league. But the deal fell through because he was unable to obtain a work permit to play in England.

The rules are pretty arcane, but a non-EU player can get a permit as a matter of right if he has appeared in 75% of his country's official international games over a two-year period. Convey could not make that hurdle, but one can get a permit through an appeal by showing the player is of "international distinction." This should have been easy, since Convey played in 15 and started 11 of the U.S. men's 16 games in 2003, but not many before that. What this means, essentially, is that the men's team is phasing out some veterans after the 2002 World Cup and reloading for the next cycle, and Convey is a key part of that.

But the review panel not only rejected Convey, it took the unusual step of issuing an insulting statement, explaining that he "was adjudged to not be of the highest caliber and unable to make an immediate impact on the English game." This was wholly gratuitious and unecessary. Now, there are several possible reasons why the rejection, including some unrelated to Convey (some think Tottenham has gone to the well once too often with foreign players), but it is an insult no matter how one slices it, both to Convey and to American soccer overall, since it amounts to a statement that American soccer is so weak that only those who can get a permit by right should.

But is this fair? After all, the US is ranked 9th in the world, only one place and two points behind England in FIFA's world rankings. So America's sucess relative to Britian's couldn't be the answer, could it . . .

(In the interests of full disclosure, I am a commited Arsenalfan who hates Tottenham (it's a big rivalry), so I have no interest in seeing Tottenham get a bright young player. But I do hate to see Americans get hosed like this).
- posted by Anonymous @ 1:40 PM