Monday, January 05, 2026

GoLocalProv Business Team

 

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On some teams in the USL, players have little or no health coverage. PHOTO: Luis Quintero, File, Unsplash

If you have seen Rhode Island FC play in the soccer stadium in Pawtucket, the matches have all the trappings of a professional league.

The reality, according to the USL Players Association (USLPA), is that more than 25% of players in the United Soccer League (USL) were not even offered any health insurance option by their clubs, and roughly 25% of players made less than $35,000 in compensation annually.

Adding to the conflict is the collective bargaining agreement that has been in place since 2021, which expired on December 30, 2025.

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Connor Tobin, the Executive Director of the USLPA, said in an interview with GoLocal, “I think for the time being, we continue to bargain in good faith, and it’s [our] intent to try to get to a deal.”

The league and the USLPA have met 38 times without reaching a new agreement. It is a league of low salaries — one player on the Providence College men’s basketball team earns more in NIL money than the entire payroll of the RIFC club, and it’s not close.

“Obviously, we’ll have ongoing conversations with membership, and we’ll see how things play out,” said Tobin.

He did not rule out a strike.

 

Healthcare — “The Club is Not Going to Help You”

“So we have some clubs that are honestly great employers and provide tremendous coverage to employers. We provide options, and that’s part of their contract. We have other clubs that don’t even offer any sort of access to health insurance through the employer,” said Tobin.

For a player who might tear their ACL, the cost of surgery and rehabilitation averages about $30,000 to $50,000 — which could be more than the player’s total compensation.

He added, “That is some of what we’re trying to address in this collective bargaining agreement. But for the groups that don’t provide access, it is a pretty significant challenge. Not only in terms of finding care, but oftentimes you have to consider that a number of players in our league are players who are foreign.”

“So even their understanding of this is limited. I will say in conversations over the last few years, with a number of foreign players, that I’ve been surprised to hear that, ‘Hey, you know, if you get a random car accident, you actually don’t have coverage and the club is not going to help you,’” said Tobin.

GoLocal had asked the Rhode Island franchise spokesperson, Mike Raia, in 2023 about salary and healthcare issues. When asked about health coverage, Raia said, “Never said full healthcare. Said they’re offered employer-sponsored plans. But not my client, so reach out to them for the latest.”

GoLocal reached out to Thomas Caughlin, Vice President, Marketing & Communications at RIFC for clarification.

Caughlin did not respond at the time of publication.

 

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Connor Tobin, Executive Director USLPA, PHOTO: USLPA

Variation of Quality Between Clubs

The USL acts more like a group of independent businesses than a traditional league of franchises, says Tobin.

“From our perspective, within the USL model, where they franchise out teams, just to franchise. And then say, ‘Hey, you’re an independent business, do what you like.’ And for there to be very little standardization of the player experience, I think, undermines the product that gets put on the field because there’s such a variance between club A and club B,” said Tobin.

“There needs to be a minimum level of professional experience as it relates to players when they come into this league. And I would say from the formation of the Players Association in 2018 to…getting to that first collective contract and then this successor agreement, our perspective has always been the same from a player’s end of how do we start to normalize what the player experience is no matter who you are in this league,” he added. 

 

Livable Wage, Healthcare, Decent Hotels, and Fair Per Diem

Tobin said the issues are more than just the salaries and the healthcare.

“I think healthcare is one component of this. There are a number of other standards in terms of how clubs operate that are also trying to address in this from things like, what is a player’s ability to speak about the hotels when we’re traveling, quality of hotels, what per diem actually looks like when we’re traveling,” added Tobin.

According to the USLPA, approximately 85% of players did not have 12-month contracts and are treated as seasonal employees.

 

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