Sometimes MLS gets no credit for thinking outside the box. Maybe that's a bit of a bum rap, given some relatively new information. In these tougher economic times for international soccer, MLS seems to be playing hardball at BOTH ENDS of the market spectrum, not only with respect to transfers OUT of MLS (which is being widely reported), but also for transfers INTO our league. First case in point: Ruiz, who is a bargain at his current goalscoring rate and form. Certainly 10x better than Hernandez at perhaps 10x LESS the price! Apparently MLS haggled over every last dollar with his Central American club prior to the transfer. Now we have reports out of South Korea: http://www.planetfootball.com/article.asp?id=105200&clid=&cpid=218&Title=Galaxy+fail+with+Hong+bid $200,000 bid for Hong. Sounds offensive, right? Too low, one says, even for a 33 year old defender who is coming off of a STELLAR World Cup campaign for the hosts. The United States side were confident of capturing Hong after agreeing a deal with the defensive veteran, but the South Korean club were less than happy with the proposed fee. Then a club official, Pohang secretary Hwang In-gook, reveals the following: "LA indicated that Hong is worth no more than $200,000, so we rejected straight away." Not so fast... BUT Pohang manager Choi Soon-ho added that the US side were looking to offset the transfer with an offer of a regular money-spinning friendly. He said: "LA offered us something other than a transfer fee. They offered us a regular friendly match with LA Galaxy, but that did not attract me at all." Okay, so it didn't work for Hong. Nevertheless, intriguing, no? Anyone have any idea what this might be worth if, say, 15,000 fans show up for a friendly each preseason? Is this, in effect, a valuable negotiating tool? If so, we have MLS demonstrating that not every transfer needs to be solely about dollars and cents, but rather dollars and "sense." I sense a "win-win" situation developing, one which -- not conincidentally --furthers the international development (and hopefully reputation) of MLS... Alternatively, does this work in reverse? If Ajax wants to buy DMB for $2 million and MLS wants more, can -- or should -- we accept a set number of friendlies with Ajax as "compensation" for the transfer? Your thoughts are appreciated.
The cost alone for traveling would make the deal a bit far fetched....travelling to Asia isn't cheap. Usually a team like Ajax would command at least 2million to show up or around that figure , which they were given to play in the Gotham Cup a few years back at Giants stadium. Nice idea, but there is so many extra's that it would make better buisness sense to just give up the extra 100k$.
Yes. And KC going up to play Rochester was also part of some player transfer deal. Its been done before - and is not a bad thing.
Are you sure about that $2 Million? I heard it was more like $100K for Ajax. I think Real Madrid gets $500K as do Juventus.
I'm gonna have to call bulls*** here. At $25 per ticket, that's 80,000 tickets. Not to mention, if this were true, Ajax would play friendlies year round it would be them who bought Ronaldo, not Real Madrid. Did you run this through your common sense filter at ALL??? You make as much sense here as you did on that "Garber" thread in MLS N&A.
Was MLS offering the friendly in L.A. with the large Korean population as an attraction? If so, I would think a korean club has the potential to make a nice tidy profit even after subtracting travelling expenses. Maybe they could have negotiated another friendly in NY to make the trip worthwhile.
I can almost see the meeting right now Brian O'Donovan "Mr and Sonny Kraft. We would like to bring in Ajax" Mr Kraft "Why, do the bleachers need cleaning again"? Brian 'No sir, Ajax is a world famous soccer team from Holland" Sonny "Hmm, I agree with my daddy, I think we can work some angle where we tie "Soccer smiles", with the cleaning power of "Ajax". The key of course will be to NEVER mention the actual game in any promo" Brian "Umm, errr..., ok, one note, they want $2 million to play, and even if we bring in 30,000 people for this game, we are looking at a SIGNIFICANT loss" Sonny "The Kraft family believes in soccer and as such, no amount of money is too great to spend on this sport" Yah, that would have flown. Andy