MLS’s new anti-discrimination policy focuses on more than just suspensions

Major League Soccer, the MLS Players Association, and the Black Players for Change group announced a new anti-discrimination policy for the league on Thursday, an effort to make the rules clearer and havemore impact.

The policy is centered on restorative practices, not just punishment. Any player involved in an incident will speak with a trained facilitator in a confidential meeting, with that facilitator empowered to judge a situation and propose an action plan.

Those plans could include meetings between the players in an incident, counseling, and education programs.

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“We didn’t find that discipline alone was satisfactory enough,” said MLS executive vice president Sola Winley, who led the league’s part of creating the new policy.

“It’s easy just to suspend people,” he said. “The hard work is in the rehabilitation and reintegrating, and we have made a commitment to do the hard work. That might not always be preferred in the court of public opinion, but if we’re true to our values, and if we’re true to the goals that we have, then we feel good about the process and feel very good about what the outcome of this will be.”

When an investigation arises, it will include reviewing video and audio footage, officials’ match reports, and interviews with witnesses. Referees will be involved, and they have a key role since they handle the heat of the initial moment in a game.

“We have iterated the process that takes place on field, and the referees have been brought up to speed on what the expectations are,” Winley said. “There’s a full set of protocols that referees have to follow that involve on-field communication, managing what happens on the field, giving players and coaches the room to be heard.”

MLS commissioner Don Garber remains the issuer of punishment. There are some principles in the rules that he’ll consider, including this headline item from Thursday’s announcement: “A player who accepts responsibility for his mistake and agrees to engage in a restorative plan will face less severe discipline than if he denies committing the act and is found, based on all the evidence, to have been untruthful or misleading.”

That serves as a reminder of how MLS handled Union left back Kai Wagner’s suspension last fall for using racist language in the team’s playoff opener. Some fans criticized the league for suspending Wagner for three games instead of the six given to New York Red Bulls striker Dante Vanzeir for a similar offense last April.

When Wagner was suspended, a source told The Inquirer at the time that his prompt admission of guilt lessened his punishment, while Vanzeir was not as cooperative. It seems that principle has now been further codified.

“It’s not a walk in the park, but if there is grace there, there is room for light, and you give players an opportunity to right their wrong,” Black Players for Change president and New England Revolution goalkeeper Earl Edwards Jr. said.

(Remember that Wagner still has one game left on his suspension, and he’ll serve it in the Union’s regular-season opener vs. Chicago on Feb. 24. The suspension does not apply to the Concacaf Champions Cup, so Wagner can play in the Union’s game vs. Costa Rica’s Saprissa on Feb. 20.)

The new policy specifies that an accused player may be placed on paid administrative leave during an investigation, but that status “is not considered discipline and does not mean that the league has determined a violation to have occurred.”

There are also limits on what will be said publicly about investigations.

Before a ruling, the league will only say if a player’s conduct is under review, and whether that player has been placed on administrative leave. After a ruling, we’ll only hear if the commissioner’s office has made that ruling, what the punishment is, and whether “a restorative practices resolution has been reached.”

Edwards, who’s also a MLSPA executive board member, said he has wanted to help with something like this for a few years.

“‘Cancel culture,’ for us, when we started seeing things like that across workforces in America, it just didn’t feel like the way to bring the country together — and here in MLS, to bring our player pool together,” he said. “It seems like it’s something that could be very divisive, where it’s this one-strike-and-you’re-out type thing.”

Edwards added that “to be able to put something together that’s as complex as this is to address such issues, I think will allow us to have a really strong impact moving forward in creating the environment we’re looking for.”

The groups involved signaled an openness to update the rules over time, creating a joint league-union advisory board for future evaluations.

“If we create the best environment — which includes the highest level of competition, making sure that players feel welcome and safe here — we believe that’s good for the players, and good for our business as well,” Winley said.

There’s also a new training program for the entire league, taught by former MLS players and designed with their input. The program has been executed in this year’s preseason, with all players, managers, and technical staff required to take part.

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“I remember as a player when I saw these meetings, it felt like I was just being talked at,” said former New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles, who’s now one of those teachers. “The one thing that I feel has been really positive, especially from the facilitators, is because we’ve just stepped off the field, there really is that peer-to-peer connection.”

BPC executive director Allen Hopkins knows MLS as well as anyone could, having been around it since nearly the beginning. He was a journalist in the late 1990s, a TV broadcaster for nearly 20 years, then a consultant with the league.

“This group has decided to be really the heart and soul of the league in this moment in this specific instance, to really provide the voice and the platform for the players,” he said. “This is just the beginning of what we believe will be the bedrock for this next generation of players, to live and work in a space as soccer professionals where equality is a default setting.”