Now here's an interesting piece of info, from a post on the MLS boards: MLS Transfer Fees (Paid) Fee Player From To Source $4,000,000 Hernandez, Luis UANL Tigres Los Angeles link $2,000,000 Graziani, Ariel Morelia Dallas link $1,400,000 Etcheverry, Marco Colo Colo D.C. United link $1,000,000 Valderrama, Carlos Atletico Junior Tampa Bay link $800,000 Hong, Myung-Bo Pohang Steelers Los Angeles link $500,000 Nowak, Peter 1860 Munich Chicago link $300,000 Comas, Alex Atletico National New York link $250,000 Diallo, Mamadou Lillestrom Tampa Bay link $250,000 Galvan Rey, Sergio Once Caldas New York link $200,000 Moreno, Jaime Middlesbrough D.C. United link MLS Transfer Fees (Received) Fee Player From To Source $3,600,000 Howard, Tim New York Manchester Utd link $3,000,000 John, Stern Columbus Nottingham Forest link $2,500,000 Beasley, DaMarcus Chicago PSV Eindhoven link $2,000,000 Ralph, Damani Chicago Rubin Kazan link $1,900,000 Lewis, Eddie San Jose Fulham link $1,700,000 Friedel, Brad Columbus Liverpool link $1,500,000 McBride, Brian Columbus Fulham link $1,500,000 Convey, Bobby D.C. United Reading link $1,300,000 Bartlett, Shaun New York Zurich link So of all the big money transfer fees paid by the league to bring in talent, not one of them has gone to the Crew. But of the top seven fees COLLECTED by the league, three of them were Crew players. Total pocketed from selling Crew players: $6,200,000 Total spent on Crew players: 0
This is some good research. The FO could arm itself with these figures and argue pretty convincingly with the league FO.
To be a little bit fair, the Crew did receive major allocations for each of the players sold. The allocations were of course worth far less than the league received for the players. The Crew used them on cheaper or out of contract players. We used the Stern John allocation on John Wilmar Perez. I think we got him on a free transfer from Colombia. We used the Friedel allocation on Thomas Dooley. We signed Juergen Sommer to replace Friedel but I think we used other funds than from Friedel's sale. We used the McBride allocation on the Mario Rodriguez loan, the Chris Henderson trade (who became Tim Ward), and a couple of draft picks used/traded for Zayner and Ezra. My contention is that the Crew FO is more to blame for making poor use of the means available, rather than the league office for not doing us any special favors.
No!! He must be moved away so that Kyle Martino can anchor the midfield. Surely our future is bright!
Damn, JWP moved out so Martino could move in, then we turn down Gomez because we already have Martino. I hate him even more now
I'm not disputing the crappiness of those facts in regards to the Crew, but those look like old numbers to me. Demspey, Adu (wasn't he 1.5 million), maybe even GAM... Anyways, we still look like ass.