http://www.kicker.de/content/news/a...ject=308249&liga=1&saison=2004/05&spieltag=17 Mentioned at end of this "Kicker" article.. Also, Clint's transfer fee looks agreed upon in the "low 6 figures".. (Pretty damn funny that MLS gets nothing for Clint, and then has to buy him back....LOL)
Wow! I'm really surprised that the transfer fee was that high. It's hard for me to see how it makes sense to MLS from a business standpoint. In fact, I can't even remember MLS paying a transfer fee ever for an American player (except maybe the Donovan loan, if you consider that a transfer fee).
Mathis is likely to be by far the most marketable player on an expansion franchise, has proven himself as an MLS star, is a well-known Nats player, and has been generally considered one of the five or so most exciting players for the last four years. If that doesn't justify a modest transfer fee, then the league shouldn't shell out a dime for anyone short of Beckham and Donovan.
Good points but I wouldn't mind lots of other players too. Hopefully Mathis will mature at some point and do his speaking on the field. Would like to see what he's really capable of.
I guess maturity is out of the question before he totally loses his skills. Checketts has gotta be pretty happy right now. Kreis, Clint and Williams on O. Just need nine other players now who are willing to completely sacrifice their games in order to make sure these three get the ball enough. They need to cover for Williams and Clint who both never met a defensive duty or extra effort they weren't willing to shy away from. Could be worse for an expansion team. Couple of skilled wild cards and a very marketable guy.
Hanover is offering Krupi (31) and Lala (29) only €800,000 annual extension (~ $1.05M) and the two found it to be pretty darn low. The article did say that Cherundolo and Guzman were more generously treated as younger and more promising players. If you assume that Mathis was making between €400-500K, the Salt Lake net offer isn't probably much of a come down. Stevie however is looking at a very nice raise. I'd speculate it'd be in the €1-1.2M range very soon and perhaps as high as €1.3-1.5M if he went to Schalke. Who says there's no money in soccer.
Hard to believe Clint is not available on a free transfer. No one wants him except RSL. Are they stupid or is the report wrong?
Well, I mentioned it also yesterday in the Mathis article thread where I quoted an article of the local paper NEUE PRESSE. I wonder how 96 and Real Salt Lake will benefit from such an Partnership agreement.
MLS is probably making RSL use an allocation on him. There's your $200K transfer fee right there. Sachin
I'm sorry but this is absolutley ridiculous logic. You don't bid against what someone a player "deserves" you bid against what the market will bear. In this case, the market most certainly does not call for a "low six figure" transfer fee for a bench player with a significant wage package, in today's market this situation calls for a free transfer and Hannover to be greatful Mathis is off their wage bill. This is a horrible precedent to make for MLS and a horrible use of $200,000 if thats what the fee actually is. MLS needs to operate within the market place, not some arbitrary valuation of players which they seem to produce themselves. This has come back to haunt MLS in the past as well when rejecting good market offers because they didn't meet MLS's "valuation" only to watch the player walk away on a free a few months later. Whats next? MLS offering a club money for a player that could be aquired on a Bosman because he is "marketable" as you put it? Get with it MLS.
Uh this is the way football works. If a player is under contract and somebody wants him he will cost money. If no one wanted him he would stay at Hanover until his contract ends.
Except that right now Hannover is paying him not to play. They'd just benefit by getting him off the books and for MLS to pay his contract. I think there is some German interest in buying out his contract so MLS will have to pay some transfer fee, but it shouldn't be very much. Checketts probably wants him (how many players could Checketts name a year ago? he very possibly knew of Mathis) so MLS will make it happen, even if it costs a transfer fee up to the low 6 digits.
Not if the original team wants to get his salary off their books really really bad. Well, the problem here is deciding who wants him less.
You do understand that all this is your opinion and does not jibe with reality right? Players under contract cost money. Only in america do we think differently. This is the type of mentality that leads to MLS demanding that Charleston release Testo because they want to sign him. Players are commodities. If I have them and you want them they will cost you money.
You seem to miss the point that as soon as someone wants him enough Hannover can name any price they want. No one gets to decide "it shouldn't be very much" but Hannover. Its like this is the Beasely thread all over again. Just because people believe he should cost much does not mean that he won't.
Listen. You want to argue football finances. Fine. But pick someone who has no idea what they are talking about if you want to, I'm going to go slow here so try not to lose me. Football finances have changed incredibly over the past 5 years. The days of the free spenders Leeds United, Dortmund, and AS Roma have been replaced by the days of the bankrupt versions of those squads fighting for their financial viability and footballing viability at the same time. This has led to a drastic change in the way the transfer market has evolved. Today the way clubs think about players riding the pine with large wage packets bringing down the clubs' profitability. I'll give you a number of examples of players who, like Mathis, were out of their clubs plans this summer and were offered free transfers to wherever they wanted just to get the player off of the club's wage bill. Keep in mind all of these were FREE transfers and all occured in the month of August, I could finds loads more. Juninho went from Boro to Celtic Jardel went from Bolton to Newell's Neil Sullivan went from Chelsea to Leeds Luke Chadwick from Man Utd. to West Ham Bolo Zenden from Chelsea to Boro Other examples (namely Robbie Fowler to Manchester City) have involved a players' former club paying part of the players' wage packet just to get him off of their squad. The transfer market today is ruled by supply and demand. There was absolultey NO demand for Mathis other than from MLS (contrary to Kicker's humorous stories about Bayern being interested). Hannover are obviously interested in getting his wages off of their books. Anyone with a decent understanding with the financial system in Europe today knows this has FREE TRANSFER all over it. So, if you want to try "reality" as you so tritely put it, please go for it. By the by, the Testo analogy is absolultey innane. David Testo is clearly an asset to Charelston, hence the demand portion from his own club. Thus, when there are two competing demand forces...well, nevermind, perhaps this would be a little much for you tonight, lets work on the transfer market first. IF there is a transfer fee for Mathis it is a dangerous precedent and incredibly poor negotiation from MLS which doesn't bode well for the future.
1. How do you know this? How do you know other teams weren't after him but he wanted out of germany so accepted MLS's offer? 2. The rumors were about 1860. In your opinion. Uh settle down francis. I wasn't comparing Testos to mathis. I was using testo as another example of the mindset of people around MLS who seem to believe that if they think a player has no worth then he doesn't. Ah persoanl insults, the hallmark of a true bigsoccer veteran. Whats next negative rep? Listen do not know who is after the man so you can't say that there are not competing demand forces. But you want to say so because it fits your argument. There is no dangerous precedent. The simple fact that you don't want to grasp is that Hannover does not wnat to get rid of Mathis as bad as peoplew ant to say they do. If they did they wouldn't be holding out and haggling over price. That is the the reality.
Yeah, and I bet the MLS has no idea about this. I am sure they did not even consider trying to get Mathis for $0, what a bunch of total idiots.... They know what they are doing buddy... it all comes down to the negotiations. Something which I am guessing no one except the MLS and Hannover have intimate knowledge of. If no one want Mathis then Real Salt Lake will be able to call Hannover's bluff and wait through January to see if he stays in place for the $200k that is demanded for him. If there is some interest then MLS may have to shell around a bit of money to get Mathis. But the MLS is in the drivers seat, and if no teams are interested i Mathis then the MLS should hopefully be able to get him on a free. Unfortunately I think none of us here know if another team has made an offer for Mathis. Even including you no matter how much you try and pretend.
A few things, tit for tat on the whole personal insult thing, this is what I love about BS, you question my grip on reality, I question your ability to comprehend things, and clearly I am the only one being aggressive? Its all in good fun. You're right, I don't know whether MLS actually could have gotten him for free. But I do know they didn't play hard ball. Every team requests a transfer fee initally, it only makes sense, if there is a dope out there (in this case MLS) willing to pay it they'll happily take it. What MLS SHOULD have done would be to say "look, we'll take him off your hands, or we'll walk away, its up to you". But clearly they didn't, they blew their load and jumped at the chance to get Mathis back. If Hannover really wanted a transfer fee MLS should have walked away, Hannover would have been back in a few weeks begging MLS to take his salary away. Why I say that it is a dangerous precedent is because every team who deals with MLS will remember this deal. This deal which (I know you refuse to admit it, but I guarantee almost everyone familiar with the transfer market will agree) had free transfer all over it. Its not good to pay over what the market indicates. Mathis had a falling out with the coach, it happens. But the coach then went on to lead Hannover on a virtually unimaginable run of form after Mathis was benched. The chances of him getting off the bench (or better yet even making the bench) under the coach were slim to none. The chances of the coach getting the axe with this kind of success were similarly slim to done. Thus, the chances of Mathis living it up in Germany while getting paid a fairly generous wage packet while not playing on Saturdays/Sunday were, well, very high. This, to me, screams free transfer if anything ever did. I could give you a number of additional examples, but you are seemingly uninterested, its your right. In your first sentence you insinuated Mathis had worth in the transfer market (by saying he didn't not have worth). I'd like to see that worth. And not some ridiculous speculation, if I wanted to I could link Eddie Johnson with a move to Manchester United through The Sun. But show me something real that he has worth. Show me that someone else actually wanted him and that MLS didn't fold to Hannover's pressure. Its my assumption that there never was any real market for Mathis other than MLS, but I suppose we will have to wait a while for the truth to come out on that one. If Hannover didn't want to get rid of Mathis he wouldn't be gone, and there wouldn't have been press for the past few weeks about being gone. Clearly Hannover did want Mathis gone. Some may think this is an insignificant point, but its not to me, I think MLS gaining respect and equal footing in the international transfer market is important. And to me this move, to me, was clearly away from that. You're welcome to your opinion and I'm welcome to mine. But paying for this transfer is ridiculous to me. I think MLS caved to Hannover's demands virtually right away, because a club with the financial restrictions that Hannover does simply doesn't have the ability to pay a non-squad player what Mathis was being paid when they can unload him.