Rumor: 2025-26 MLS Offseason Roster Moves, Signings, Speculation, & Rumors

Everyone here is aware of that. That's why I made the comment the way I did.

 

Allegedly Messi and Beckham called him personally, that's what is being reported on the Mexican side of news.

One thing Miami also has that hardly anyone sees, Messi aside, is that the Miami ownership. Mas and Beckham, are very involved in decision-making. Obviously Beckham knows the game, tactics and players but Mas knows too and he seems to be passionate about the sport. The rest of MLS owners just put up money and have no clue about the sport, tactics etc. Other owners are just in it to collect revenue sharing. While Miami has 3+ people making decisions and plans, the rest of MLS just has the Sporting Director making all the decisions and as we know some of these Sporting Directors are bad at their jobs. Stack in an ownership that is clueless on top of that and you see why Miami has the advantage.

 

EX-LAFC

🇸🇳🔴 BREAKING: St. Louis City is finalizing a deal to sign Mamadou Mbacke Fall from Barcelona, per sources.

A number of MLS teams wanted him but STL get it done.

Mbacke, 23, made 60 apps for Barcelona’s second team.https://t.co/fmcaYQN57C

— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) January 17, 2026

BREAKING: St. Louis City is finalizing a deal to sign Mamadou Mbacke Fall from Barcelona, per sources.

A number of MLS teams wanted him but STL get it done.

Mbacke, 23, made 60 apps for Barcelona’s second team.

 

Unlike other teams fans thinking Miami is breaking rules with these signings, I wonder why more teams aren't breaking them if that's true. They seem to be building a team to compete in CONCACAF Champions Cup. Hopefully more teams in MLS try to keep up (cheat?).

🇦🇷 Inter Miami has officially re-signed Tadeo Allende on a permanent deal from Celta Vigo.

Non-DP deal.

Allende, 26, spent last year on loan. Set a new MLS postseason goals record with 9 en route to Miami winning MLS Cup pic.twitter.com/ma5xZbl2sd

— Paper Talk (@DailyTransfer0) January 19, 2026

 

A pair of former MLS'ers coming back from Europe:

New England Revolution acquire Griffin Yow | MLSSoccer.com

Charlotte FC acquire Tyler Miller from Bolton Wanderers | MLSSoccer.com

 

Miami announced the deal as 4.5 years, and Transfermarkt has the transfer fee at almost $6M US. Curious how much he'll be paid (or how accurate the transfer fee is) in order to stay under the DP threshold for that deal since he earned $1M last year.

 

Isn't the TAM threshold around $1.68k?

Luca DLT was on $1,644,295 last season.

 

I would imagine just under TAM level that is $1,803,125 per club.

 

That's quite the pay cut for Allende to stay in Miami, then.

 

If going from $1 million to $1.8 million (potentially) is a pay cut then yes.

 

He's personally not going to be making $1.8M. His cap hit will include the transfer fee, which is why people were wondering how Miami could make this deal work while not having him be a DP.

$5.8M (which is roughly the current going rate for 5 million Euro) over 4.5 years is almost $1.3M a year.

 

What about their $5.3 million GAM?

 

You can't buy down a player whose budget charge exceeds whatever the max TAM player amount is.

 

Say, he got a 50% raise to 1.5 million.

So, that's 7.5 million transfer and salary, divided by 4.52 prorated over the extent of the contract, and you get 1.67 million, which is probably below the max TAM, if this is correct:

 

Wat?

A raise to $1.5 million means the transfer fee has to amortize to $300k or so a year. An almost $6M fee does not do that.

Allende made $1M last year. Why are you saying Allende gets a raise and also say he's going to make $1.5M total for his entire contract?

 

All outside of MLS transfer fees are paid from money out of the owners' pockets. That doesn't mean they don't get accounted for as a salary budget charge. Outside of U-22 players, all transfer fees get accounted for somehow. The math is irrelevant for DPs but not when a team is trying to get a player on board without making him a DP as is the case with Allende.

 

Yes you can. They can partially buy down part of the transfer fee with GAM. They have the GAM to do so. At least use enough to make him TAM which is what he is classified as. This is what I think they did.

What they can't do is buy down a player whose salary is over the maximum budget charge. Which is what happend to Nagbe a few years back that was just a couple thousand dls in salary per year over the max TAM.

 

https://share.google/aimode/ydApBBGYGoOUJENjy

 

That would be an unfathomable amount of G/TAM to spend on one player for a team that has to spend a lot just to buy all the international spots they need.

 

So they had $5,300,000 in GAM saved, get a further $2,930,000 pre-season and they can bring forward $1,250,000 from next year.

Buying Down a Loan or Transfer Fee
A club may “buy down” 100% of a loan or transfer fee by utilizing General Allocation Money.

Example: Club pays $500,000 to acquire a player via transfer and applies $500,000 in General Allocation Money to the player’s Salary Budget Charge.

 

Messi is on the hook for 2.5 years. They may as well throw everything they got into the pot to make those years a success. Worry about what comes next later.