Is a strike looming? Reports say so, with owners offering extremely limited free agency

A slew of American soccer journalists are reporting that the CBA negotiations are not exactly going smoothly, with offers from owners giving a very limited set of players free agency.

The American soccer world has been alight at all this news, with the most reliable news coming from the ever-excellent Steven Goff at the Washington Post and Jeff Carlisle at ESPN.

The disruption and back-and-forth qualities are somewhat expected, given that negotiations hadn't been smooth before, but the updates today have been pretty back-and-forth. With the season starting on Saturday, it's looking more likely that there will be at least some delay to its onset.

Goff reported that MLS owners had apparently proposed a deal wherein players who had been with a club for 10 years and were at least 32 years old would be free agents. Later, Jorge Arangure of Vice Sports reported that his source described that as "old info."

Arangure also said that his sources told him that there would be free agency in the new CBA unless there was a strike, in which case, it would be pulled off the table. It's hard to say what sort of free agency is under discussion, but it's at least something.

A vote to strike, Cam Tucker a sports reporter at Vancouver Metro reported, would come tonight or tomorrow morning. Carlisle reported that if a strike does indeed come to fruition, agents might be securing loans with NASL sides. That sort of position is made possible by the existing CBA.

Obviously enough, this could all change quickly. When negotiations happen, we're not particularly exposed to them until players start talking (or until owners open up, but that's not likely to happen again.)

We'll have more as it becomes available, but do check out that Reddit link above. That's pretty up-to-the-minute with links and embedded Twitter posts.