For some unknown reason, our American cousins have decided to use the Premier League as a guide for their own principal footballing league the MLS.

The reason, I presume, is due to the assumptions that the MLS has made regarding the recruitment of so-called big names or ‘attractions’. Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard are not going to make the MLS a better league; they are going to make it a more commercially viable league.

Gerrard and Lampard are referred to as ‘designated players’. Under MLS rules a squad cannot exceed the salary cap, unless they are a designated player. Each club has a maximum of three designated player spots.

Therefore every summer America welcomes the latest European has-beens for their last big payday, thus the MLS is often referred to as, ‘the retirement league’. There is always a quick turnover with designated players due to the age of the players who normally occupy these roles, which allows the MLS to keep things fresh commercially.

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The situation in the MLS isn’t too dissimilar from the early Premier League years. Players such as Fabrizio Ravanelli, Rudd Gullit and Roberto Mancini all swapped the Italian Serie A (the best league in the world at the time) for the Premier League, which was still finding its feet after its inauguration in 1992.

The aforementioned players, however, were arguably playing in the twilight years of their careers much like Lampard, Gerrard and Robbie Keane, when they signed their careers away.

The reason the Premier League was able to attract these ageing stars was because of the wages they were willing to offer. It was a trend that firmly set the tone for modern English football.

The results speak for themselves, since the formation of the Premier League and its many billions to spend, the England national team has regressed. It is no coincidence that England’s last successful major tournament was Italia '90, the last World Cup before the Premier League was formed. Things have got progressively worse, to the point that English players hardly feature for the best English teams.

America has fallen into the exact same trap. Their national team is currently performing well bellow par after losing to Mexico and Costa Rica, leading many fans to question the position of soccer in America. The United States are producing fewer star players than they did 15 years ago; their money is being spent on branding rather than the development of young players.

The designated player rule just highlights the disparity further, and it’s the same in the Premier League, with the exception of Rooney. All the highest paid players in the Premier League are foreign. Young players are being starved of opportunities in both countries, so be careful what you wish for, America, is a wealthy league the best league for football in America?

Either way, the footballing situation for both nations looked a lot more promising 15/20 years ago, when American players were good enough to play in the Premier League and English players were good enough to play in Serie A. Now the best homegrown talents have to settle for a place on the bench, in their respective domestic leagues.

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