Major League Soccer is trying very hard to prove that it belongs up there with the NFL and the NBA as an important pro sport. An important American pro sport, that is.

As one way of doing this, the MLS has introduced into its schedule an event that is unknown elsewhere in the worldwide game of soccer: the annual college draft.

Just like the NBA and the NFL? In appearance, yes. In practice, no. Basketball and football have a wealth of talent to pick from, including a select group who can go straight into the professional game as top stars. The situation in soccer is different. There are no college superstars — indeed, the level of the sport in the colleges is so far below the level of the pro game that very few, if any, of the players drafted can expect to join a club as a regular starter.

The shortcomings of college soccer as a breeding ground for professional players have been obvious for decades. The people at MLS are well aware of the problem, but find themselves in a bind. The public relations value of the draft is immense — it goes out live on TV and looks every bit as efficient and meaningful as the NFL and NBA versions. The draft also allows the colleges to feel that they are contributing to the growth of the pro game, and it appears to offer college players a chance of stardom.

But faced with reality, the MLS has been forced to take steps that inevitably downgrade the college game. In 1997, it introduced its Project-40 program, designed to identify the 40 best high school players in the country, and to steer them away from college soccer by offering them special training and scholarship money to ensure their education.

The MLS is shy about identifying the role of the colleges in its draft, which it grandiosely dubs the SuperDraft — no mention of the colleges, even though that’s where virtually all of the players come from. The list of entries in the 2008 draft, held earlier this month in Baltimore, contained 73 names — 70 of them college players. The three exceptions were high-school age players from the United States Soccer Federation’s elite academy in Bradenton, Fla. — in other words, top young players who wish to skip college soccer altogether and go straight into the pros.

Project-40 is now a sponsored program called Generation Adidas, but its aim remains that of fast-tracking promising players into MLS, or put another way, of encouraging them to leave college early. Eight of the 14 first-round picks in Baltimore were GA players — six were college underclassmen, the other two were from Bradenton.

But the GA factor further undermines the validity of the draft, because with GA players there is a non-playing factor that helps account for them being picked high in the draft. They are attractive to MLS clubs because the salaries of GA players do not count against a club’s salary cap.

The SuperDraft, then, is anything but super, and is of increasingly questionable merit. Signs of its inadequacy surfaced in 2005 when MLS cut the number of rounds to four from six. MLS coaches will admit — off the record — that they spend little time or money assessing college players. A top college coach, asked if he ever noticed MLS coaches scouting players at his games, replied scornfully “Are you kidding? They watch them for a couple of days at the combine, then maybe I’ll get a phone call.”

The MLS’s support of the college game is laudable, but it is unrealistic. The flimsy fiction that college soccer can supply pro-level players cannot be maintained for much longer. Nothing short of radical changes in the college game can alter the outlook.

As a provider of young talent, college soccer has to be measured not against college basketball and football, but against the youth development programs of top soccer-playing countries in the rest of the world. Those programs involve intensive training and are all controlled by pro clubs.

The 20 or so regular-season games played in American colleges are nowhere near enough. College soccer’s age restrictions and its rejection of any professional input banish another vital aspect of development: playing with and against experienced pro veterans. That is an aspect that could be somewhat alleviated if college players were allowed to play outside ball — but draconian NCAA regulations virtually rule that out.

It is the NCAA that stands in the way of allowing a nationwide system involving thousands of soccer-devoted people and hundreds of teams with excellent facilities, to help improve the quality of American players. But I know of no one who believes there is any chance of the NCAA making significant changes in its regulations. Which means that as the MLS improves the caliber of its play, the colleges will be left further and further behind.

A recent hint of the coming divorce between the MLS and college soccer came last year when the league announced that each of its clubs is expected to create its own youth development academy. MLS clubs had been dragging their feet on this, for under MLS regulations any starlet that they produced would have to enter the SuperDraft and in all likelihood would be snaffled by a rival club.

So the MLS changed its regulations, allowing each club to withhold its best two youngsters from the draft — a move that further erodes the credibility of the draft.

As the MLS expands, it needs more young players, and it needs better ones. With college talent already stretched beyond its limits, the league must soon face the inevitable conclusion that a draft based almost entirely on college players — as at present — makes no sense. But a draft without college players is not feasible.

The MLS may well wish to continue the SuperDraft for its publicity value, but it cannot improve its playing standard while relying on college talent. The MLS club academies now look set to take over the main role in the development of American players.

pgardner@nysun.com