De Bruyne, Mueller Rumors Show MLS Must Scrap Discovery Rights

Among the MLS stars linked to European clubs this summer, the two where there seem to be real legs are Belgian midfielder Kevin De Bruyne and German striker Thomas Mueller.

Already, De Bruyne has been linked to both Inter Miami and the Chicago Fire, while Mueller has reportedly already turned down a free transfer offer from FC Cincinnati. And conventional wisdom suggests other teams may also get involved as the the MLS summer transfer window approaches.

What Discovery Rights Are

But of all the intricacies of the MLS roster building rules, one of the weirdest is that, if any team other than Miami signs De Bruyne, or if any club other than Cincinnati signs Mueller, they will first have to compensate those clubs for the player’s “discovery rights.” And it’s becoming clear that MLS roster mechanism has outlived its usefulness.

Basically, every team has what is called a “discovery list” of up to seven players that currently don’t play in MLS, aren’t former MLS players, and that aren’t part of the U.S. senior or youth national team player pool.

All that a team has to do to add a player to its discovery list is to file a claim with the league office. The lists typically aren’t public. The names on them typically have to bee anonymously reported through the media for the public to find out, as has been the case with De Bruyne and Mueller.

The idea behind discovery rights is that it would help preserve leaguewide parity on the international transfer market by preventing the biggest-spending MLS teams from simply out-bidding everyone else.

But these recent examples suggest the provision is no longer serving that purpose.

Discovery Claims Aren’t Always Credible

Take Miami. For starters, Miami is exactly the kind of club that discovery rights are supposed to hinder from acquiring yet another international superstar to add to their core of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba.

Additionally, when rumors first connected the club to De Bruyne, the more steadfast observers of the league pointed out it was an unlikely deal to happen, given Miami’s lack of available Designated Player roster spots.

Yet the club was still permitted to file the claim on De Bruyne. And if Chicago or someone else (maybe New York City FC?) eventually makes a move for him, Miami is likely to get a considerable chunk of general allocation money in exchange for the right to complete the transfer.

So instead of giving a more moderate-spending team leverage in the De Bruyne chase, the discovery rights system actually gives more leverage to the higher spending and less realistic suitor.

Meanwhile with Cincinnati, early reports are that Mueller already turned down a contract offer.

It’s unclear whether Mueller’s camp doesn’t have interest in going to the Ohio city, or if the offer simply wasn’t lucrative enough, or if this was just some sort of negotiating tactic. But if it’s the first two, the reality of another club having to compensate Cincinnati for the right to sign Mueller is a needless impediment to bringing another marketable talent into the league.

Rooted In A Different Era

Discovery rights originated in the first year of the league, before Designated Players were even a concept, when big international transfers were far less common, and when MLS teams were unable to sign players from their own academy or recoup proceeds from their own outgoing transfers.

In other words, small market clubs were generally forbidden from doing the kind of business that make the best smaller market clubs successful.

That’s no longer the case, and clubs big and small have more roster building options than ever, from the increase in increase in dispersal of allocation money over the years, to the provision of using green card applications to open international roster spots, to the introduction of the U-22 initiative.

Discovery rights have continued to exist, mostly because no one has saught explicitly to eliminate them. But they’re no longer serving a need.