http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability_company

LLC’s (C stands for company, btw) are designed to protect ownership interests due to financial strains. My scenario of Soehn bearing the brunt of this can still play out, and it’s due to the fact that the system is operated like one big LLC.

As for whether or not Namoff has a case, I think that given the lack of information available about concussions until recently and the fact that each player assumes a certain amount of risk inherent to the game they probably should be in good shape going forward.

But no journalist can beat himself up too much about this, because he can look around and see no one else was covering it. Frankly, it probably took a player like Twellman, whose career we’ve seen and who’s been through it himself, to bring the issue the attention it needs. I don’t think we, the readership, would have responded to concussion stories had it not been for Taylow.

As for the concussion issue, we know very little about the brain. What precious little we do know about concussions, and their long term effects today, is significantly more than we knew five years ago. Why are girls more susceptible to it in soccer than boys? Why can one person get five concussions and live a long, normal life and another get two and suffer as he ages? There’s speculation as to the reasons behind it, but the truth is we really do not know. But, since we do live a litigious society, concussion waivers are already becoming the norm and I expect helmets to become mandatory. The guys at Full90 will soon have more orders than they will know what to do with. Of course, that leads to the question, if all the players have to wear helmets, will the beneficial effects of the helmets go away because players will become more aggressive thinking the helmets protect them?

As for Steve’s dilemma, I respect your empathy. But one freelance journalist does not a culture change make. I would be more than willing to bet significant money that the player in question demanded to play. “Take one for the team” is as much a part of soccer as it in football.

1) MLS’s pseudo-franchise setup and single-entity structure opens the entire league (and every team in that league) to these situations. If DC is hit hard, you can guarantee that the other 18 teams will feel the shocks of these consequences. This is a big deal.

2) To add to the “considerations”, how will DC’s the new ownership group respond and/or directly deal with this situation? They have deep pockets coming into the club, but are they generous enough to deal with a problem that happened long before their tenure began? Is this something that could easily be gobbled up by them and thus save the rest of the league from having to deal with the finances of it? If so, at what cost to the re-building DCU?

3) A reminder that this happened at the same time that Twellman was trying to make a comeback from his 2008 neck injury that gave him his concussion. Twellman retired the following year. My point is that these things happened during a very uncertain time in the history of concussion awareness in professional sports. Since then (and any coach that has taken any USSF coaching certification courses can tell you) most organizations make this a priority, especially for young players.

If this is looked at in the context of the overall “epidemic” of concussions in MLS, then I think the legal battle over how much the organizations involved would have known to prevent this, considering it was very early on in this journey. If anyone has anything to be worried about, I’d say it’s Tommy Soehn for having ultimately been the individual to have made the decision to put Namoff on the field.

It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

Financial risks to the league via lawsuit, yes. But I hope some of these guys remember they have lives and families after their pro career is over.