They had a player that disputed his contract extension saying he never agreed to it blah blah blah, but that was his agents fault, he then went to Mexico and signed with another team, while still under contract with MLS. The Mexician team was forced to pay a transfer fee.
It wasn't an extension, it was one on Vancouver's 'option years'. And while Quretero did eventually pay a fee for Camilo, many people thought that if they did follow through with taking it to FIFA and/or the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Quretero would have won. They eventually settled for a fee of around $1 million. Camilo was the golden boot that year.
Queretero claimed it was a "multi-million dollar fee" but reliable details are pretty hard to come by in regard to that mess. However that may be, the basic facts were clear; Vancouver exercised the option year on the guy and legally held his contract. Queretero didn't pay that money out of generosity, they paid it because they had to. Nobody came out of the thing looking good; his agent is an ass, the player is an arrogant dick and Vancouver exercised an option without even giving the guy a call and letting him know.
Arace seems to think the Crew should pay him: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/sports/2016/01/27/0127-arace-column.html I'm not sure I consider a $500+K salary is making him "one of the league’s most underpaid players", though.
If you're not going to pay Kei after the season he had, who will you pay? His performance was exemplary - on and off the field. This feels like one of the rare moments in an off-season where we will define what kind of organization CCSC is. Whatever happens, we're going to learn something about AP.
Lets say he puts in another 20 goals? would you consider then? For me, a center forward/striker is one of the places where you overspend for potential production.
Kamara is now at training camp. Getting ready for Wednesday morning training in Florida. #Preseason #CrewSC pic.twitter.com/RQbi59bR5o— The Crew (@ColumbusCrew) January 27, 2016
I did not say that a raise wasn't reasonable. But getting $500K a year, as he does, does not exactly make him "one of the league's most underpaid players" either. That's still a top salary in this league. Just because Seattle, for one, overpaid for Dempsey, doesn't mean we should too. I think Arace overstated the point.
He IS underpaid for his performance. That is the point. He should be making 1m per season. That seems about fair. 750k at least.
Kei would be the 2nd or 3rd highest paid player on most teams. There are quite a few where he'd be the highest paid player, based on MLSPA 2015 Guaranteed Salary. Again, I'm not going to whine and complain if he and the team renegotiate, but I'm not entire sure the team should give him the farm because he had one excellent year either. For comparison, Mike Magee actually was MLS MVP two years ago, and he makes 100,000 less than Kei does. Lee Nguyen was runner up a year ago and he made less than 200,000 last year.
But according to some Crew supporters Kei is better than Giovinco so he should make $8m/year + 500k in spacecash for every goal he scores.
Still, he's not one of the "league's most underpaid players". That's what I quibble with. And some fans are really good at spending other people's money.
There is one reason you sign a multi year contract. That is to assure that no matter what hapeens during the time period of the contract you will receive a predetermined amount of money. If you do not preform for whatever reason you still get the agreed upon amount. If you preform better you don't get more money. He should have asked for a contract that paid less money for less performance and more money for outstanding performance.
Hell yes then you should pay him, but more likely they would sell him. Was last year a blip or is this a start of a trend?
Just pay Kei $1 million and call it a day. Kei deserves it. Especially because no one was really thinking before last year he would score 20 plus goals. Kei's only the best goalscoring forward we've had since Stern John. Got to pay a little more, I think even a 20 plus goalscorer in MLS will get some shots by bottom relegation or near relegation top league level teams in Europe. In several leagues. Especially with where Kei is mentally. He's staying in Columbus. He only missed half a season to play here. But can't hate on Kei for asking more. It's smart, even agent wise.
Now this is just getting silly. I'm sorry, but it is. I love Kei, you love Kei, we all love Kei. But this has absolutely nothing to do with what we think he deserves. The man signed a contract. A binding agreement. Voluntarily. Yes, he scored a ton of goals last season, but that's his job. And it's a job that still has two year to go. If he doesn't have strong performance bonuses written into his current contract, he should fire his agent. Immediately. I hope the team are able to work something out to make Kei happy, I really do. But calls to essentially double his salary are insane, and would set a terrible precedent.
Andrew King Retweeted Daniel Karell @DanielKarell 15m15 minutes ago The Allsvenskan's 3rd top scorer last season, Marcus Antonsson, admits he recieved interest from MLS but said no: http://www.fotbolldirekt.se/2016/01/26/avslojar-vill-kopa-loss-allsvenske-toppanfallaren-men-stoppas-av-hog-prislapp/… Andrew King Retweeted Daniel Karell @DanielKarell 15m15 minutes ago I can't help but wonder if #CrewSC were after Antonsson.
Who knows, perhaps he only wanted to negotiate in performance bonuses? I'm sure we will never truly know, but I thing he has earned a bump to at least $1 over Sauro's salary, if just for the principal of the matter.
This is silly. Of course Kei should ask for more money as he's outperformed his contract. Sports contracts aren't particularly binding as players can be cut or holdout/retire. If you're a contract stickler why aren't you complaining about Gaven? And MLS contracts typically don't have much in the way of performance bonuses because they count on the cap whether earned or not. In the NFL, unused cap space rolls over to the following year so teams don't mind big incentives. But in MLS, unused cap space simply returns to the owner/operators, ie Precourt gets about 1/20th of the unspent amount. It's hardly a terrible precedent for a team to give a player a new contract. The Crew have done it already this offseason with Finlay. Teams should want to pay for performance and a now established big scorer is worth a lot more than 536K in MLS. Kei would be a bargain at 1 mil per year if he scores 20 goals again.