WOW
This is a pretty harsh penalty especially for a new team in a pro league. The owner has come clean, but is this the the harshest penalty given to a pro sports team in North America?
Alex Rodriguez (former MLB player) was fined $25 million for his use of PEDs. That was against a player, not a team, but still that’s over 10 times the amount.
The Dallas Cowboys and Washington (Football Team) got penalized $10M and $36M over 2 years for a somewhat similar situation of attempting to circumvent salary cap rules.
The NFL was officially in a season without a salary cap due to not having a working CBA, so those two team (and two more to a lesser extent) structured deals to move paydays up. They were then punished by giving money to the 28 teams that didn’t violate the ‘unofficial salary cap’ that year.
This isn’t quite the same level of league making up rules as it goes, but the MLS does have a history of that to an extent.