Drafting is a frequent area of criticism for Major League Soccer from some quarters, particularly overseas, but it’s a vital part of the league’s business. The draft system as a whole encompasses the main processes through which MLS teams - which are members of a single entity league - sign players. Drafts represent only the tip of the iceberg of Major League Soccer’s labyrinthine rules and amount to more than simply selecting players out of the college system.

MLS uses drafts to distribute players from college and players out of contract, and also to spread the single entity love to new clubs. Over the next three months MLS teams will undergo three major drafts in preparation for the 2011 season, which begins in March. On 24th November the 2011 Expansion Draft will help the league’s new clubs to beef up their rosters. On 8th and 15th December, the newly-created Re-Entry Draft - cue “burning up” gags - will allow clubs to pick up players that have become available within MLS. And early next year it’s time for the SuperDraft, the college draft with which those with a knowledge of American sport will be familiar.

SuperDraft

If the designated player rule is the glittering centrepiece of Major League Soccer’s player acquisition process, the college draft is where the rubber meets the road. The league’s teams take part in four rounds of picks, with expansion clubs picking first in each round followed by the other teams in reverse order of the previous season’s finishing positions. In the 2011 SuperDraft in January, two expansion clubs will take part and Vancouver Whitecaps will have the first pick in each round, followed by Portland Timbers. The Whitecaps chose to have first pick after winning a coin toss. After the Whitecaps and the Timbers, 2010’s bottom eight teams will pick beginning with the worst team, DC United, and moving up the 2010 table. The eight playoff sides from this season will pick based on how they finished in the post-season.

The players in the draft are college players or players signed to Generation adidas, a system set up by MLS and US Soccer to make MLS entry available early to non-graduate players (GA players do not count against the league’s senior roster limit, among a range of benefits for the drafting clubs and the players themselves).

Eligible players are invited to take part in the MLS Combine before the draft. Here, they showcase their talent by taking part in training drills and technical tasks under the watchful eyes of the scouts from the teams looking to draft them. In truth, most clubs will already have their preferred draft outcome in mind but the Combine acts as a final opportunity to get a good look at other options.

With the teams’ plans in place and the Combine complete, SuperDraft day is a high-profile MLS get-together where the players are picked and various trades take place between the clubs. Like their counterparts during the season, those trades involve not only players but a whole host of other commodities including allocation placing and, notably, draft picks. As a result the draft principle - that the clubs have one pick each per round in a particular order - is more of a guideline and starting position than a reality.

To give an example, at the 2010 SuperDraft DC United opted to use the occasion primarily to secure the signature of goalkeeper Troy Perkins. Perkins was due to be allocated to a team after returning to MLS from Norway (such players are, in theory, allocated to clubs based on the allocation order cycle), and new club Philadelphia Union were at the top of the list. DC traded Fred (not that one), allocation money and their first round draft pick to Philly in exchange for their place in the allocation order, which they used to sign Perkins. United went on to sign only one player from the draft. Complicated, no? Such is the SuperDraft. Climbing The Ladder has a comprehensive list of the exceptions already in place for next January.

Once drafted, players can be signed by the successful club. Those not signed join the club’s College Protected List until December, when they become available to other teams if not signed by the club that drafted them. In many ways it’s easier to assess the SuperDraft after it happens because so much can change on the day. This year, the likes of Dillon Powers are expected to be early picks, meaning they could well end up at Portland or Vancouver. Only time will tell.

Expansion Draft

There are no such complications in the Expansion Draft, which takes place next week. Because MLS is a single entity, expansion teams must combine any players they might have from a previous incarnation (clubs like Seattle Sounders and 2011’s expansion sides have replaced second division clubs) with existing MLS players, college players via the SuperDraft and, if they choose, designated players. The mechanism that allows them to sign MLS players is the Expansion Draft.

With the Timbers picking first, Portland and Vancouver will sign ten players each from the rosters of the league’s other clubs, who can select a list of 11 players each to protect from drafting by the new teams. Only two players from any one club can be picked, and once a club is raided for one player, it add another player to the protected list. Generation adidas and homegrown players are exempt from being drafted.

Despite the small rosters in MLS, this leaves some great players unprotected and available to be poached. Perhaps the best example of recent years is Sebastien Le Toux. The French striker, a mainstay of the pre-MLS Sounders, signed for the MLS Sounders but was not on the team’s protected list and was shrewdly drafted by the Union for 2010. He had a phenomenal season in Philadelphia.

After the Expansion Draft, the identity of the new clubs will really begin to take shape, with a good number of key players in place for the following season through either the Expansion Draft or signings from USSF Division 2 or elsewhere.

Re-Entry Draft

The drawn-out negotiations for the new MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement had players’ rights issues as its major sticking points with the threat of a strike or a lockout looming over the start of the 2010 season. The league and the players’ union settled on a compromise that offers players at the end of their contracts the chance to secure themselves a move and have a say in their destination. With no Bosman Ruling in MLS, out-of-contract players previously found themselves in transfer limbo. Now, they go into the Re-Entry Draft.

According to Goal.com, the players involved will fall into three categories: players over 23 with three years’ MLS experience whose options were not exercised by their clubs, players over 25 with four years’ MLS experience who are out of contract and whose clubs do not want to re-sign them at their current salary, and players over 30 with eight year’s MLS experience who are out of contact and whose clubs do not want to re-sign them.

In other words, they’re out of contract. And on 8th December they’ll get their first chance to join a new team. The players will be picked in a similar order to the SuperDraft and will be available to clubs willing to pay option salary for category one players detailed above, 100% of their 2010 salary for category two, and 105% of their 2010 salary for option three. On December 15th, any remaining unsigned players will go into a second round of drafting in which those salary percentages become negotiable.

Phew…