Tacoma Group Given a Week; MISL Salary Cap May Go Lower

SAN DIEGO —  The future of the Sockers and the Major Indoor Soccer League is up in the air again after a pair of meetings in Cleveland on Tuesday.

In one meeting, MISL owners met with prospective buyers from Tacoma who are interested in re-activating the Star franchise. The owners, in deciding to wait until next Wednesday to hear the offer, gave the 27-person group headed by Jim Manza some time to formalize its final bid.

In a separate meeting, Kerry Readon, owner of the Kansas City Comets; Bill Oliver, owner of the Wichita Wings, and Scott Wolstein, vice president of the Cleveland Force, met with the MISL Players Assn. director, John Kerr, to begin discussions concerning a new collective bargaining agreement.

Joe Papaleo, the player representative for the Dallas Sidekicks, said Tuesday night that Kerr told him the league was planning to drop the salary cap from $898,000 to $675,000 per team for next season.

Ron Cady, president of the Sockers, said he and Ron Fowler, the prospective buyer of the team, will meet today to discuss the club’s next step.

Cady did not comment on the negotiations between the league and the Players Assn.

“We have said all along that we will make a bid to buy the team (out of a federal bankruptcy court) if there are eight teams,” Cady said. “We met with the people from Tacoma, and now we’ll see what they come up with. They are very interested, but they have some things they have to take care of before they can finalize their bid.

“Our concern is that it is going to take another week now before we know exactly what is going to happen. We just don’t want to keep waiting, so we’ll meet today to see what we’re gong to do.”

The new negotiations concerning the salary cap, however, seem to present another stumbling block.

Players and owners agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement in mid-April that called for the salary cap to be lowered from $1.275 million to $898,000 for at least two years.

Now, Papaleo said, the league wants a five-year deal with the salary cap down to $675,000. Papaleo said he talked with nine Sidekick players, all of whom said they would vote against this new plan.

Socker player representative Kevin Crow said Tuesday night that he had not talked to Kerr, but that a new offer by the owners was just another way of slighting the players.

“You don’t have to be a genius to figure it out,” Crow said. “Just last week, you had seven teams--and I say seven because the Sockers were ready to go before Tacoma folded--that were ready to go forward with the $898,000 salary cap. Now they’re saying they want to lower it. It’s just to put more money in their pockets.”

Added Papaleo: “I don’t know who came up with this new plan, but it’s ridiculous. With the salary cap that low, the average salary would be about $32,000 after they pay taxes and take care of insurance. How can they do that?”

According to sources, league owners have given the Players Assn. until Tuesday to accept this newest offer.

“Lots of issues are involved, and it (a new collective bargaining agreement) must be a new five-year deal (instead of the existing two-year deal),” Cleveland Force owner Bart Wolstein told United Press International. “But John Kerr knows he is a key to the future of this league. He plays a vital role. If he and his group can’t accommodate us, well, then there won’t be a league.”