Didier Drogba to FIRE?

one can only hope

 

Chicago would have to hope Chelsea declines and China under bids

 

Apparently he's leaving Chelsea
http://www.francefootball.fr/#!/news/2012/05/21/130843_drogba-quitte-chelsea.html

 

Anelka got like 8-12 million per year for 2 years in China (or maybe total for the 2 years, not sure), I wonder how much Drogba wants.

 

http://www.iol.co.za/sport/soccer/p...chelsea-for-china-1.1301030?showComments=true

^ that puts it a 250K pounds a week.

 

That is like 26 million; I doubt it will be that high, but definitely more than what MLS would want to pay.

I think MLS won't offer anything over 10 million per.

BTW Anelka did not help his team make it out of the groups in the AFC CL. and the team is 1 spot from the relegation zone as of right now.

The rumor for Anelka was 200K pound per week (about 20 million) but for what I've read the final number is much less than that.

http://www.soccerway.com/news/2011/December/12/anelka-completes-chinese-swap/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/12/shanghai-shenhua-chelsea-nicolas-anelka

I think British media exagerates the number.

Still half of 250K per week is sill too much for MLS IMO.

 

To be fair Shanghai did not participate in this years ACL. Guangzhou Evergrande on the other hand who just spent quite a bit on Lucas Barrios (Dortmund) and Marcello Lippi did advance to the knock-out rounds.

 

That is right, I saw their wiki page and I looked at the 2011 result, that was before Anelka go there.

 

Talking about Anelka, things don't seem to be so rosy in Shangai

http://www.footmercato.net/autre-championnat/anelka-menace-deja-de-quitter-le-shanghai-shenhua_85217

 

Where has Anelka ever been happy?

 

I think I saw a picture of him smiling once, but I'm not totally sure.

If he really has problems with his club (with this guy you never know) , it will be tough to sell the Shangai experience to Drogba.
Anyway, only time will tell.

 

I read somewhere that the high-end was 175k pounds a week, which would put him around 14 million USD a year. So it might be a little less than that but probably not too much. Lucas Barrios is on an 8.5 million USD a year contract, so Anelka probably cost a few million more than that.

 

is Drogba allowed to decide which MLS team he wants to play for and then negotiate a contract with that team or does MLS decide what team he plays for and what contract he will be offered?

 

DP contracts don't go through MLS 'flow control' at all - they're negotiated by the clubs, although I understand that MLS FO will jump in for logistical support and general USA-wooing purposes. So there wouldn't be any primetime lottery to determine Who Gets The Drogba.

 

Of course not. The point is to attract these guys, not give them reasons not to come. The reason MLS is able to do that with US nationals is bc coming play in their home country is usually all the incentive that's needed. But DPs there's the dual factors that the club is actually spending it's own money, and the fact that most well-known players won't stand for being told where to play. They have no concept similar to drafts or allocation where they're from.

There was a time that MLS was able to did allocate well-known foreign nationals early in the league's existence, but without the novelty of the league being a factor and with so many other emerging markets like China, the Middle East, etc competing for signatures, this likely would not work at all well today.

It's likely that they also have no trade clauses written into their contracts so that they will have to approve any attempts to move them similar to what they're used to in either Europe or other parts of the world. The only caveat being that I believe that they do sign at least part of their contracts with MLS. But that's as far as their control over DP contracts go.

 

so if Michael Bradley for example came back to MLS, MLS would decide what team he plays for and what his contract would be?

 

He would go through the allocation process. There would be negotiations between Bradley's representatives, MLS and the team that would be taking him. Bradley may stipulate he will only go to X club and then the league will work a trade out between that club and the club who takes Bradley in the allocation.

 

In short, yes. All members of the USMNT are subject to the returning nationals allocation list. The list is permanent and pre-determined. Clubs can trade their way up and down this list or simply pass on a returning player at which point he would go to the next team on the order. It's the reason why when Brian McBride wanted to return to the Fire, they had to make a trade in order to gain the first place in the allocation order. The Galaxy were able to avoid this process in retaining Edson Buddle since they still held his MLS rights.

 

how did the Galaxy own Buddle's rights since he was out of contract with them and had signed with a foreign club?

 

Buddle was out of contract and the Galaxy gave him a legit offer to resign. He then went to Germany. So they retain his MLS rights. If they had sold him and received allocation money, then they would have no rights to him.

 

We can all put this one to rest, Drogba official to Shanghai Shenhua:

http://www.givemefootball.com/premi...firmed?state=8a5bab9bd7e44ac78184a751970ff260

He is (reportedly) going to be making approx. $14.9 million per year...

 

The guy who funds the chinese team is threatening to stop paying Drogba and Anelka beceause he didn't receive the 70% control of the team he wants (he has 28.5%).

Basically if him and the administration of the team don't stop fighting he will stop paying....

sorry for those that don't read french the article is from RDS
http://www.rds.ca/soccer/chroniques/347010.html

 

apparently he could not transfer to an EPL club (or Europe) until January....but then he needs to
go the African Cup until February 10th.

MLS should seriously look at this. Drogba is only going to get a 1 or 2 year deal in Europe max
at a top club, maybe an extra year at a mediocre club.
He is 34 next March. MLS could offer him 4 year deal and compete financially with the middle-tier English or continent. The guy is in phenomenal shape, and he might be a step slow in the coming years, but still a top player