What I should be writing about are the relative soccer strengths of the USA and Trinidad and Tobago as the two teams prepare for their meeting on February 9 in Port-of-Spain, a qualifying game for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

Apologies: I can’t do that. Because only one national team – T&T – is doing any preparing. The American players, meanwhile, await a resolution to the dispute between their players’ association and the United States Soccer Federation, the body that runs the national team.

The USSF has set a February 1 deadline for settling the matter. If it’s not resolved by then, the USSF says it will “pursue other options” for putting a team on the field. That means using replacement players of a lesser caliber, thus raising the risk that the USA will open its qualifying campaign with a loss.

The dispute, of course, is about money, specifically player compensation for games with the national team. These sums are in addition to, and quite separate from, the salaries made by players with their club teams. Under the terms of the previous agreement between the PA and the USSF, each player is paid between $2,000 and $5,000 for exhibition games, depending on the caliber of the opponent. But World Cup games – both qualifiers and final round games – bring in much bigger dollars. And the final qualifying round for Germany 2006 begins on February 9, which is why the money issue has suddenly become critical.

The qualifiers consist of the hexagonal regional tournament, involving the U.S., Mexico, T&T, Costa Rica, Panama, and Guatemala. Each team will play the others twice, home and home – a total of 30 games, finishing on October 12. The top three teams will qualify for Germany 2006, and the fourth place finisher can still qualify by winning a two-game playoff against an Asian team. At full strength, the USA would be considered a shoe-in for one of the first three places.

FIFA has already announced that each World Cup team will receive $8.2 million. That is the base; the further a team advances in the tournament, the more it makes. At the Japan/South Korea World Cup in 2002, the USA reached the quarterfinal round, and the 25 players on the roster each received $200,000. The USSF has offered an increase of 38% for 2006, which exactly corresponds to the 38% increase in the FIFA payments.

This is not enough for the PA, whose demands – according the USSF – would amount to a 108% increase. The PA insists that payment to the players should not merely be based on the FIFA handout, but should also take into account the sponsorship and television money brought in by the national team. According to Mark Levinstein, the DCbased lawyer who negotiates for the PA, that amounts to over $10 million a year.

The contract dispute hardened when the USSF, displeased with what it saw as the PA’s excessive demands, withdrew its agreement to backdate any new agreement to 2003, when the last one expired. The PA responded by filing an “unfair labor practice” charge against the USSF with the National Labor relations board.

What we have at the moment, says the USSF, is a strike by the players – because they refused to attend a training camp in December. Rubbish, says the PA, claiming they were never officially informed about the camp. For the PA, the USSF’s cancelling of a subsequent camp, as well as exhibition games against Sweden and South Korea, constitute a lockout.

Caught uncomfortably in the middle of these pressures is national team coach Bruce Arena, who has to work with the players while being paid by the USSF. In late December, Arena proposed that the February 1 deadline be postponed to March 1. A reasonable suggestion, as the Americans’ next game – against Mexico – is not until March 26. But the USSF rejected any postponement and stated tersely that “Arena is not part of the negotiating team.”

On January 5, the USSF asked the PA to agree to binding arbitration; the PA suggested mediation, which the USSF said it would accept, but only if the players agreed to a no-strike clause for 2005. That condition was immediately thumbed down by the PA; the USSF then set in motion its efforts to call up replacement players.

That process was never going to be easy, and could well brim over into a complete farce. The USSF has three potential sources of replacement players: MLS players who have never played for the national team, college players, and players from one of soccer’s lower pro echelons, i.e., the United Soccer League’s first and second divisions.

Player solidarity now comes to the fore. Those who accept the USSF’s offer will inevitably be seen as scabs by the regular national team players. According to Ridge Mahoney, writing for Soccer America, seven of the early invitees – all MLS players – rejected the invitation to the training camp. The likely attitude of college players was given by Indiana’s Danny O’Rourke, the fourth overall pick in last week’s MLS super draft. Asked if he would accept a USSF invitation, he carefully evaded an answer, saying, “I’m not sure I understand all the complications of the dispute.”

So it comes down to the USL.A training camp got under way yesterday at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, with Arena in charge of 22 players from the USL and the Major Indoor Soccer League: veterans with only a limited playing future to worry about, and younger players who may believe that the chance to represent the USA outweighs any possible damage to their careers.

It could thus be that on February 9, the USA will become the first country to field a replacement team in a world cup qualifying game. With virtually no training time left, the makeshift team would be unlikely winners against T&T.

Admittedly, losing that first game would not be disastrous. But a prolonged dispute would be. One shudders to think what fate would befall a replacement team in Mexico City’s Azteca stadium on March 26.

A compromise – meaning something that both sides can claim as a victory – is the only sane solution. Otherwise, World Cup qualification will be jeopardized, along with all the positive publicity for the sport that goes with it … to say nothing of that $8.2 million promised by FIFA.