COURT HEARING ON MLS ANTITRUST LAWSUIT SET FOR FEBRUARY

          A federal judge in Boston yesterday scheduled a "key
     hearing in an antitrust lawsuit filed" by ten MLS players
     "challenging the two-year-old league's core structure" for
     February 9, according to Mark Asher of the WASHINGTON POST. 
     In the "case's first courtroom session," U.S. District Judge
     George O'Toole Jr. said that "he would rule on a dispute
     about MLS's ownership structure before a jury trial, which
     isn't likely to begin before fall of 1998."  Asher: "At
     issue is whether [MLS's] ownership structure qualifies as a
     single entity under antitrust law, or whether it is designed
     to stifle the marketplace for players and skirt antitrust
     laws, as the players claim" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/12).