Former MLS team president says pro/rel would benefit US soccer

Promotion and relegation is one of the most controversial topics in American soccer. Everyone has thoughts and conversations often get heated. Most of us are speaking just as fans though. Our points of view are just as informed or ignorant as everyone else’s. That’s not true in the case of Tim Bezbatchenko. 

Bezbatchenko spent years working in the MLS league office and with the player’s association. Before that, he was a player for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds. He eventually left MLS to become the general manager of Toronto FC and later the President of Columbus Crew. Bezbatchenko now leads Bill Foley’s multi-club ownership group Black Knight Football Club (BKFC). 

All of this is to say that Bezbatchenko is extremely knowledgeable about how American soccer works at almost every level. This week, he came out in favor of promotion and relegation.

Pro/rel is the easy answer for MLS

In an interview with David Gass on the Soccerwise podcast, Bezbatchenko was asked by the host about the first thing he would do if he were given complete control over soccer in the United States. 

“The easy answer is–now having been over here (in Europe)–is pro/rel,” Bezbatchenko responded. 

The former Columbus Crew President also addressed some of the criticism of pro/rel that he often hears, then explained why that criticism is sometimes misguided. 

“Everyone always says it costs so much to be in the league,” he said, addressing the argument that MLS club owners would never agree to pro/rel after spending so much on MLS expansion fees to guarantee a spot in the league. 

“People say it’s impossible, but then when it happens, they don’t talk about it, and they don’t dive deeper into ‘How would that look?’ or ‘What are the challenges would we face if we did it?’ I think it is a question worth exploring,” Bezbatchenko added. 

He was then asked if his stance on pro/rel and the growth of soccer changed once he left American soccer or if he had always felt this way. Bezbatchenko said “I think I’ve always known…It’s one of those things you know, but until you experience it, you don’t really know.”

We need more soccer

Besides pro/rel, Bezbatchenko also says that having more soccer available is key to taking American soccer to the next level. 

“I want every community that has over 200k-300k people to have a professional soccer team in it, meaning, you just have soccer everywhere and it’s at a decent level. So, there’s more kids playing, there’s more coaches contributing, and more people learning,” he explained. 

Right now, there are over 120 cities in the US with over 200,000 people. The majority of them do not have a professional soccer team. Under the current US soccer model, the vast majority of them will never get to have a top-tier professional soccer team. Bezbatchenko says that this is a problem of US soccer limiting itself and being too small. 

“I think the world is still too small in a way. I know we (soccer) are one of the largest–if not the largest–participatory sport in the US, but I think it stops at certain levels…How can we get more players, coaches, staff more opportunities so that they can have a career?

“I think that would feed in and make the domestic player [better]. There would be more competition and there would be more numbers. That would make the country better.”

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