Editorial: MLS championship a "Real" joke

Imagine the headlines in Europe this past May if Major League Soccer ruled UEFA: "Man United 1st in Premiership - 8th Place Tottenham new Champions". "Palermo Wins Scudetto after coming in 8th - Inter look to next year". How come that kind of absurdity seems so ridiculous everywhere in football but is accepted as a justified reality in MLS?

Kudos to Real Salt Lake for knocking off one MLS favourite after another on the way to the title but is this what North American football fans really want? The need for a playoff structure in North America is seemingly necessary to attract fans late in the season but the result is one that insults true football fans.

When you look at this policy of playoffs, which has made the likes of Columbus and Houston mere footnotes in 2009, you realize that it is just part of the problem that truly keeps MLS on the outside of the world football community. The problem is that the league is still far too obsessed at reaching out to marketing demographics rather than the core football supporter. While it is true that the casual fan is necessary for financial purposes, they are also the most fair weather and likely to disappear.

The true football supporter is often overlooked in MLS's quest to corner the Volvo Mom demographic and it is to its own detriment. If you consider the football friendly changes made in the last few years such as more football-only stadiums, club names and kits that don't look like roller hockey and standardized FIFA rules, they have all complimented a fairly good product. On the other hand, MLS's history of "dumbing down" the sport have all been abysmal failures that didn't attract new fans and alienated true fans.

It is time for MLS to take some more steps towards full football legitimacy and the playoff structure should be one of the first moves. There are many different structures that could be implemented to move MLS closer in line with the rest of the world while keeping its North American necessities. In the end, it's the football that counts and RSL, a sub-.500 club, as MLS Champions is a poor showing for the league. Changes are needed, they just need to be done by football minds - not marketing ones.