MLS Commisioner Don Garber, center, greet Union Academy director
Tommy Wilson, right, and sporting director Earnie Stewart
Tuesday at YSC Sports in Wayne.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber toured the Philadelphia Union’s holy triangle of sites Tuesday – first Chester, then Wayne, then Philly – to see firsthand the infrastructure in which the club has invested so heavily in recent years.

Most of Garber’s remarks, to students at YSC Academy and then to a Town Hall audience at City Hall in Philly, centered on the Union and their situation within the MLS landscape. But in a one-on-one setting afterward, members of the media asked Garber some more pointed questions that went outside that local box.

A few highlights:

- First, a question from the town hall audience directed at Garber was aimed at the growth of the game via expansion and television. Garber said that the MLS TV contracts were set through 2022, but “we’re soon to announce over the top a social media package where games will be available on one of the more well-known social channels.” Feel free to speculate what that is, but there is recent precedent for experimentation in that realm. Liga MX and CONCACAF Champions League have taken to Facebook, the NFL used Twitter to livestream games and YouTube has been the chosen platform for the U.S. Open Cup for several years.

- In February, Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl published a report on a “Designated Player-level” prospect who elected not to move to an MLS club due in part to the legal climate in the United States. The player, a Muslim, reportedly did not feel safe in the U.S. in light of President Donald Trump’s (since reconfigured) travel ban on residents from seven Muslim-majority countries. (The player was not from among those countries, Wahl reported.)

Garber said he wasn’t familiar with Wahl’s report or the player or club in question, but he did say the league is monitoring how the executive order changes.

“I think the bigger issue is how is the most recent law going to impact all Americans and impact all businesses. We have a particular interest because of the number of international players we have. I don’t know who that player was and I haven’t spoken to him and I haven’t heard anything else about that specific player. But we are a league for a new America, and you look at those kids there, I pointed to the mayor to look at the diversity of those players that are in the Union Academy, that’s what makes our country great, that’s what makes our league great, and I hope that we’re going to be able to continue to represent the wonderful story of immigration and diversity of our country. But it is very premature. We, like all other sports leagues, are carefully monitoring what’s happening. As you can imagine, we are following it closely to ensure that we are able to operate our business in a way that reflects on our values and those things that really matter.”

As far as any concerns regarding MLS players carrying passports from any of the countries on the list being barred from re-entering the country if they were to travel to a game in Canada, for instance, Garber said: “Not at this point. … None. We have not had any issues, but we are closely monitoring it.”
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The Union brass gathered Thursday for the unveiling of the Power Training Complex,
an expensive asset that isn't unlike their expenditure on Alejandro Bedoya.

Alejandro Bedoya sat about 20 feet from the man who signs his checks Thursday afternoon, as Jay Sugarman stepped to the clear Plexiglass podium.

The Philadelphia Union Chairman proceeded to discuss the rationale surrounding the building that brought the Union front office, ownership, players and a few hundred others to Chester, extolling the virtues of the Power Home Remodeling Training Complex.

The terms that Sugarman selected so carefully could’ve applied as much to the new multi-million-dollar facility as it did to the newly-minted million-dollar midfielder, the first in club history.

Both were sizeable investments, massive on the scale of the Union’s history and substantial even by an MLS-wide lens. Both present risks. But both only made sense within a framework, the “well-articulated, cogently put together” strategy that new sporting director Earnie Stewart has assembled, to use Sugarman’s words.

After the presentation with Power Home Remodeling execs and members of the Union ownership, Sugarman elaborated on the process that landed Bedoya in Philadelphia, an ordeal that dragged from last summer when it appeared imminent prior to French club FC Nantes wanting to hang on to the midfielder, and was resuscitated successfully this season.

Instrumental to the process is the evolving relationship between Sugarman and Stewart, hired as the point person for soccer matters last December.

“I think with Earnie, we have a great, open relationship,” Sugarman told reporters. “I said, ‘look, are you telling me this is going to lead to a championship? Is this the player you’re going to build around?’ And he said, ‘yes,’ and I said, ‘go do it.’”

The Bedoya transfer saga was protracted over multiple transfer windows. By this summer, at the risk of losing the opportunity a second time, Sugarman pulled the trigger. The increased gravitas of Stewart helped swing the pendulum.

“I think last year, we were at this point and there was seller’s remorse,” Sugarman said. “It just didn’t happen. I think given how clear the plan is this year going forward of what we want and what we need, the pieces just seem to fall into place. It was expensive, there’s no question. We had a lot of conversations about, how do you manage the MLS budget, and I think the conclusion continued to be, is this going to lead us to the place we want to get to? If this is the right player, then go get it done. We stopped quibbling about $50,000, $100,000, $200,000 and said, ‘this is the right player, go get it done.’” Read more »

Court documents revealed this week show the depth of dysfunction
behind the scenes during Peter Nowak's tenure with the Union.
(Times File)

For those residing in the peculiar Venn diagram overlap of “people who follow the Philadelphia Union” and “people with a high tolerance for digging through legalese,” this last day has been a whirlwind. Jonathan Tannenwald at Philly.com Tuesday night obtained many of the relevant documents relating to the long-standing lawsuit between Peter Nowak and related entities for wrongful termination from the Philadelphia Union, and more documents were made public Wednesday. You can find a tidy listing of the highlights divulged by Tannenwald’s tweets here at the Brotherly Game, and it's worth picking through his timeline for gems.

All the documents are available at Philly Soccer Page, and I’d expect plenty more reaction there in the coming days. If nothing else, Steve Holroyd’s guide behind the curtain of arbitration proceedings such as these is extremely helpful.

In the over 700 pages of disclosures, there is plenty of new information, lurid details and downright concerning glances at the inner workings of the early Union franchise. Among the very important documentation is Nowak’s contract, liked at PSP as Exhibit A. (All of these links will be pdfs, so browsers beware). The most pertinent are the two parts of Exhibit C, which is the Union’s post-hearing brief. Tab 1 is more detailed; Tab 2 is more condensed. Nowak’s post-hearing brief is available in Exhibit D.

Exhibit G is arbitrator Margaret Brogan’s interim decision, followed by her final award in Exhibit L, which finds decisively in the Union’s favor and orders Nowak to pay nearly a half-million dollars in legal fees.

There are many points of granular interest. But I want to pinpoint something else that is inherent in the text and that still has real ramifications for the Union. To be sure, Nowak’s influence has waned. The number of players exposed to his brand of management number in the single digits, and the hiring of a real sporting director in Earnie Stewart is further hope for the maturation of the Union as an organization in the club’s second half-decade. Beyond the headline-catching salacious details – and yes, it’s taken me this long to type the word “spanking” – the ramifications of the disclosures echo much farther down the line, which imbues the past with greater significance.

First, the files The crux of the determination for Nowak’s dismissal and the subsequent reason why Brogan found that not to have constituted wrongful termination lies in the opening months of 2012. Nowak was fired June 13, 2012, and the timeline of events leading up to that are a bender of disconcerting behavior.

Here’s the rough timeline, as alleged in Exhibit C , Tab 2, from the Union’s perspective, many of the details of which Nowak was only made aware of after his firing:
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News broke Monday morning that the Philadelphia Union landed Earnie Stewart as its technical director. First and foremost, it's a move that was widely hailed within American soccer circles, including many pundits who've found precious little in the past to be excited about in Philadelphia. This one is particularly pertinent:

Earnie Stewart is a franchise-altering hire for the Phila Union. I went to see him at AZ Alkmaar almost 4 years ago https://t.co/PQTGIbDeuX

— LeanderAlphabet (@LeanderAlphabet) October 26, 2015

Jay Sugarman held a conference call Monday, and lots of information was divulged in the 30 minutes he addressed the media. Some highlights:

- Sugarman was effusive in his praise of Stewart's work ethic and vision, in a lot of the areas that the Union have emphasized. Sugarman stopped short of deeming Stewart the perfect candidate, but when you consider the criteria listed by Sugarman last November and again Oct. 2 in the wake of Nick Sakiewicz's firing, Stewart fits the bill pretty comprehensively.

"I think I feel pretty strongly we needed a real firm direction, just in terms of our playing philosophy and how we’re going to go about building a competitive edge in MLS. What I saw at AZ is they really had a strong track record of finding players that fit their team system, and we’re counting on him to do the same here. I think we have obviously room to elevate the quality of our scouting and our recruiting and our player development across the board, and on each of those, what he’s been able to do, what he’s been doing, is a really good fit with how we want to approach the world. He’s a guy that’s very focused on development. He has a real sense of that. We're looking for players who not only think the system can make better but can also make the players around him better and a philosophical way of playing very quickly. As we went through a number of individual cases, it was very clear to me that he had a strong sense of how to find real players to fit his system, and that’s guided a lot of his thinking, and that’s kind of what we’ve been looking for. ...

"One of our key criteria, we wanted someone who really wanted to be here. Earnie is I think as far back as 2012 has said that one of his goals in life was to come back and have an impact in the U.S. Soccer stage, to really come back and do something special for the country that he played for and clearly has deep feelings or and wanted to help us succeed but also help U.S. soccer continue to grow. So that was really important to me. I wanted someone who took that commitment seriously, who was willing to make a long-term commitment to the Union but also see their place in helping to grow the entire sport in the U.S. I look back at his playing record, you look back at how he went about developing himself as a young player and that kind of intense work ethic, he told a lot of stories about going out after practices on his own with Brian Carroll in D.C, and going out after practices and working on their own to make themselves better players. That’s the kind of mentality we think not only do we need at the Union and want at the Union but is part of the maturity process that the entire U.S. Soccer program is going through. Earnie is a great figurehead for that, and we’re delighted that he can come to the Union to make that impact."

- Sugarman didn't say how Stewart's name came up as a candidate. He said that Jim Curtin and Richie Graham were among the many parties involved in the search. Stewart's name didn't come up through MLS headquarters, though Sugarman did say the team contacted MLS when vetting Stewart.
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There were plenty of question marks going into last Friday’s press conference featuring Philadelphia Union majority owner Jay Sugarman, ones that went beyond the not-so-mysterious unveiling of Rene Meulensteen as joining the organization in some capacity.

What stole the headlines, though, was the first media address by Sugarman.

Understandably, a fair amount of myth and misunderstanding has grown around Sugarman. When his only image before the fans is comprised of appearances like this, that’s easy to see. It also doesn’t help that most of the information about Sugarman has come via ownership partner Nick Sakiewicz, who has his own issues of image within the Union fanbase (and MLS at large). Absent concrete statements from the man himself – and with three straight playoff-free seasons of time to let the imagination wander – the perception of Sugarman has had a tendency to slant toward the negative.

Sugarman, though, isn’t an absentee owner. He’s been at the heart of spending for the club in recent years, including infrastructure investments like the Union academy and the practice facility. He’s been visible and accessible, even if he didn’t want to talk on the record. Much of that distance is likely the product of two factors: 1) The fact that he lives and works in New York and isn’t as local as he’d like to be to comment on certain day-to-day issues; and 2) The realization that he is not a soccer lifer, which means he’s willing to defer to the expertise of Sakiewicz – who is no longer (or never was, depending on your philosophical bent) involved in soccer operations – on such matters.

The impression Sugarman gave at Friday’s press conference wasn’t in line with the reclusive, uncaring image that is sometimes portrayed of him. He was plenty candid, even if using pre-scripted notes to make sure he got his major talking points across. He threw in the joke of, “see you in five years,” at the end of the presser. And he was even willing to get a little sassy in answering a question from yours truly (20:50 mark).

A few moments ago, I noticed that Union majority owner Jay Sugarman was watching the game in front of the tunnel: pic.twitter.com/aRWKCfkGu4
— Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) May 10, 2014

Afterward, Sugarman was accommodating to one-on-one interviews with smaller groups of reporters, which painted a more candid picture. For one, Sugarman hasn’t been uninvolved in the Union over the last five years, even if he wants to be more active in the future. He comes across as a pensive, thoughtful student of the game, one who owns a team of relatively meager finances that requires an edge to compete. He’s a businessman who has realized that on-field profits aren’t turned overnight, leading him to use the novelty of the business as a cushion to meticulously seek information about the marketplace he’s venturing into before making sweeping statements about it. He’s sought that advantage, not just through emphasizing academy talent but by some pretty interesting advanced analytics tinkering.
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Rene Meulensteen, seen here with Fulham last year,
is happy to be working with the Union. (AP)

It’s possible that Friday could be looked at as a seminal moment for the Philadelphia Union, a watershed day in which their structures and hierarchy begins to take the shape required by the rigors of the new MLS (2.0 or 3.0 or whatever.0).

Announcements of such gravity –the contracting of Rene Meulensteen as a consultant, the formal declaration that a sporting director will be sought and the first public comments made by majority owner Jay Sugarman – provided plenty of food for thought and a lot of information to sift through.

So let’s distill it into a few important points from today’s press conference.

1. Jay Sugarman is not a silent owner.

It’s easy to have thought differently given his muted public presence, which fostered the notion among some fans that Sugarman was just the money and little else. There’s no doubt the enormity of investment that he’s put into this club, but his involvement (which I’m going to explore in a little more detail later) doesn’t entail writing checks and then ignoring how the funds are spent. Through co-owner Richie Graham, he’s had a hand in the creation of the Union Academy. Sugarman is an enormously successful businessman, and he got that way by identifying talent and allowing those people to do their jobs. And now, being less than satisfied by how those jobs have been done, he’s stepping in to put into practice his time learning about the team, the league and the American sports market.

2. Nick Sakiewicz is no longer involved in football operations.

In the assignment of duties Friday, one of the first was that Sakiewicz “and his team will focus on building the business and have the resources to compete as our league gets stronger and stronger,” according to Sugarman. Implicit in that statement, which Sugarman repeated later in the press conference, is that Sakiewicz will have limited to no hand in soccer operational decisions moving forward. That follows with Sakiewicz’s public statements of late (and depending on your perspective, has been the paradigm all along), and it dispels any misinformation to the contrary in concrete terms.

3. Rene Meulensteen is a temporary remedy.
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Jim Curtin, alongside Nick Sakiewicz, took the podium for the first time as the Union manager Thursday morning and patiently addressed a number of topics for the better part of an hour. This is hardly the whole thing, but allowed me to post a few of the highlights. (Note: There are plenty of less-than-relevant asides in here that, for the sake of brevity and sanity, I didn't transcribe. I've tried to preserve the context here as best possible.

Opening statement (yes, it's this long):
First, I’d like to thank Jay Sugarman and Nick Sakiewicz for giving me this opportunity. It’s one I’m very excited about, one I’ll take with great pride, being from this city, it means a lot to me. I’d also like to thank John Hackworth and Rob Vartughian. Those are two guys that were able to give me my chance in the game with this club. Those are two guys that put in a lot of years here and left the club better than when they started. …
To the team, I’d say to put it simply, we’ve had a bunch of very good players have poor first halves of the season. We have 18 games left; that’s the good news. We have 18 games to get this ship right. We have the U.S. Open Cup, which we’re going to take very seriously. This club needs a trophy. There’s only two that you can lift, and that’s one of them, so we’re going to take that very seriously.
The big thing with me, the results haven’t been there this year. We all know that. We only have three wins in 16 games, so the results haven’t been here. But the resources are here to win. I’m confident in my staff that’s being formed right now, it’s getting pieced together, it’s a very strong one, it’s one that I trust. As an assistant coach, I have Mike Sorber, a guy who I respect a great deal, I’ve connected with very quickly, I’ve known from the past, times in Chicago. He’s a guy in a lot of ways who is more qualified as an assistant than anyone in MLS right now. He’s a guy that has World Cup experience. He’s a guy that’s played in a World Cup, so again a guy I’m going to lean on heavily. I also have a bright young technical director who’s very progressive in Chris Albright, a guy that I have a great relationship with. Again, has done everything that you can do in this game, an all-Star, he’s played in a World Cup, He is a guy that I’m going to lean on heavily to make decisions personnel wise, along with Nick….
On to the players, right up the middle, you talk about a Conor Casey who right now is in very good form, scoring four goals in his past two games. He’s a guy that just needed a run of games, and now he’s got that and he’s going to get that with me. He’s a guy I trust. We have a Vincent Nogueira right up the middle again, a guy that every coach in this league wants on his team. He’s special. We have Maurice Edu, who in my mind should be in Brazil right now, but he’s not. Has it been tough for him mentally? Yes it has, but we’re going to get him going the way we know he can be, and he’s a special player, one of the top players in this country and one of the top players in this league. When we talk about the things behind the scenes that are going on with this club, we talk about the resources that we had, the little things that you might not see – again I said the results might not be here, but the resources are. ...
We have the most passionate fans in the league, I believe. I’m a Philly fan as well. ... I know the passion that the fans have, I know the emotions that they have, and I know that the thing that they want is winning. That’s what this is about. We need to win. And we’re going to do it with accountability, accountability from the players on and off the field. That sounds like a simple message. I could sit up here and talk tactics and formations and all that stuff, but at the end of the day, what matters in this town is winning, that’s what I believe.
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