To be fair, the league source didn't really deny it: he replied to a description of how the transfer fee was handled with only "I disagree with that characterization" without providing any detail on what detail or details he disagreed with. It's quite possible that the recent SA story that argues the money came from a SUM-funded pot rather than an MLS league office bank account clarifies the component of the SI story the unnamed league source had trouble with. Who knows?
Nope, the decision amongst the SUM investors to take a portion of their money and invest back into MLS was made at the time of the partial sale. That money was reinvested in one of their primary products. Consider it marketing cost to SUM, or however they want to classify the funds. In either case it is a sunk cost after that decision from last year (assuming this pot of money is from SUM). Whether they spend it one or 19 teams likely doesn't matter . . only that they spend it on the "right" players.
I didn't but it is a link from the MLS side but not from the SUM side. From the SUM side there are investors with no interest in MLS beyond it is one of the primary properties of SUM.
Question: Is Charlie Davies subject to allocation order if he is signed as non-DP player? I assume so. But Revs are 3rd on list.
Based on the clarification and recent history, non-DP contracts would move through Allocation order provided no one has his rights still.
What's ironic is I used to call this "the Clint Dempsey Rule" because I'm pretty sure the Revs were the first to get paid under it. Guess that nickname will never stick now. . .
Transfer fee is one thing salary is another. Seattle does not have the cap space to sign another player.
OK. Fine. But you need stars and quality. And many clubs bring the quality that is not quaranteed with stars. If one is subsidized, all teams should be able to get their DPs subsidized. I'm not even asking for equal subsidy. Houston DPs would not cost $9m in transfer. Just subsidize our $1m transfer for OBG if your going to subsidize CD. Further, the league should not be in a position of deciding when to subsidize and when not.
Don't follow your point at all. And all teams contribute to the shared monies. Your almost imply SEA & LAG could make their money without quality opposition. And BTW -- Houston is succesful financially and very popular on national TV relative to other clubs.
It would be equitable in my mind as long as all the teams had the same access, even if they couldn't take advantage of it. If the league said, "OK, each team will have one shot at the biggest name they can swing, and we the league will pay 25% of it. One time only," I'd be cool with the fact that Seattle got a bigger player with what turned out to be bigger help because they have bigger money and everybody put the same relative skin in the game.
I'm not sure there is a lot more here to talk about. The league has clarified the rule. The league has apparently applied it consistently with past practice until someone can demonstrate otherwise. What more is there to say here?
Back to the transfer fees, we really don't know how they set this fund up (assuming it exists). Perhaps the league identified a handful of players where MLS said it would pay the fee. Maybe each team is capped about how many dollars they can receive over the life of the fund. Not knowing these things, it's hard to say it's unfair -- all we can really say is Seattle at least has done pretty well.
Where??? No one has yet to show anyone the written version of the Reyna rule (which is revisionist history by the way as at no time in 2007 did the allocation process and Reyna skipping it get mentioned). So please stop making stuff up like Garber and Durbin have.
How is it revisionist history? Did Reyna not skip the allocation process? Is citing a precedent revisionist history now?
well, if the transfer was paid by sum rather than the league, we've got ourselves a fig leaf. now mind you, sometimes a fig leaf is sufficient to preserve decency, provided you're satisfied that the spot you need to cover isn't very large. of course different folks will have different opinions about how tidy these things ought to be. it's interesting though that the people making the decision felt it was relevant to wear their sum caps and not their mls ones.
Okay, here we go again. You are describing the discovery claim as something completely separate from holding MLS rights to a player, yet a part of the process. A discovery claim is a claim of a player that a team is interested in signing, mostly from a country outside the US/Canada. MLS rights belong to MLS clubs that have previously signed a player that is technically property of MLS and that club, whether playing for the club (on the roster), or for another club (on loan or transferred without the club accepting allocation money for said player). The two are not the same and in the signing process, have nothing to do with each other - MLS rights come into play when a MLS player returns to MLS (Edson Buddle, Robbie Findley, Robbie Rogers), while discovery rights apply to players who have never played for MLS clubs (Kris Boyd, Nigel Reo Coker, Mikael Silvestre). In this case, Boyd was only bound by a discovery claim file by Houston. The fact that Houston tried and failed to sign Boyd had no bearing on the fact that Houston held the discovery claim for Boyd or the fact that none of the 19 MLS clubs had Boyd's MLS rights. Portland then sent compensation to Houston in order to obtain that discovery claim on Boyd and sign him. Upon the terms that were signed with Portland under the discovery signing, Portland obtained Boyd's MLS rights and Boyd became a DP, officially entering him into MLS through the discovery signing mechanism and the DP mechanism. Again, no MLS club had Boyd's rights until Portland officially signed him. True, but it does mean that players can enter MLS through more than one mechanism. Otherwise, Portland would have been free to approach Boyd and sign him (ONLY) as a DP, ignoring the discovery claim Houston had on him. Here you're saying Houston benefited from puting a discovery claim on a player that was signed as a DP, so they got something from claiming him. This is true, however, if he were signed as a DP, the MLS rules as recently explained would have had nothing to do with discovery claims as players can only enter MLS through one of twelve mechanisms. Please stop trying to say that I'm suggesting Dempsey is subject to a discvery claim. I'm not saying that. Again, I'm only using the case of Boyd/Houston/Portland as an example in recent history (just last year) that contradicts MLS' explanation of player acquisition through only one of the twelve mechanisms. The point of rules is to leave little to nothing open to interpretation. If MLS has to interpret their rules, they're written very poorly and/or they're trying to get away with something. The former's obvious, but the latter is also seeming more and more likely as details continue to be revealed. Good ol' ML$...