Alert: OFFICIAL: Xherdan Shaqiri Career Deaththread AND Shaqiri Nutrider Thread

Wow!
I tried to look this up.


Shaqiri has already been removed from the Fire's website.

I clicked on roster, he's gone.
I clicked on a match, to link to his page. It's gone.

I see three matches were both of them played.

April 13 v. NYRB 0-0 draw
It appears Shaqiri played the full 90.
Barlow came in to wander around in the 75th minute.

May 4 v. New England 0-1 loss
65th minute Double sub
Shaqiri and Barlow came into the match for Mueller and Koutsias!

May 11 v. St. Louis 1-3 loss
Shaqiri played the full 90
63rd minute
Barlow came on for Mueller.

 

I would suspect that he has a few clubs lined up for his services.
If not, then this move makes little sense for either side.

 

What a coup for Basel, but not a surprise.
Great for them (maybe he will help them get back to European competition as they are not playing in Europe this year for the first time in over 20 years).
Great for Shaqiri.
Great for the Swiss League.

Too bad the Fire could not get something for him, even a token transfer fee, but that saga is over and time to move on to something else now.

 

Speaking in general contract law terms (a course I teach in the Fall), mutual termination usually ends the obligations on both parts.

We often call that contract recission, especially early in the contract (although not in this situation).

Of course, there are also contract settlements, where one party pays the other to just end the contract. I have had dozens, if not hundreds, of those in my career. Frankly, that is my preferred method of dealing with contract disputes or breach of contract fights.

Also, it is pretty obvious that the deal with Basel was set up prior to his release, so there would be no reason for the Fire to pay him the rest of his contract.

There is one curious thing. His contract was terminated yesterday and he signed with Basel today. Basel's season started a couple of weeks ago. Why didn't he leave three weeks ago and sign with Basel prior to the start of their season? We had nothing going on, so his leaving 2-3 weeks ago would not have made a difference to the Fire (other than giving us more time to look for a replacement).

I suspect that they have trying desperately to move him (or his people have been trying desperately to secure a move). It was not happening, so the Basel deal came to fruition on the condition that they could sign him on a free. The Fire, faced with the possibility of paying another 3 million or so for that last third of the season, only to lose him in Fall, when it would be harder for him to find a new team, just agreed to terminate the contract.

The Fire save a couple of million.
Shaqiri gets to leave now, while he is in shape, healthy, but has had a good rest.
Basel gets a player ready to go and one that didn't cost them anything other than negotiations.

However, I could see this scenario: He signs for Basel for a couple of million less than the Fire are paying him and the Fire pay him the rest of his contract to make up the difference. That would be generous (and unnecessary) for Joe to do, but that might make it easier for Shaqiri to make the decision to leave now, instead of waiting until after the season and just collecting a fat paycheck for six months.

Your point about this being MLS and we probably won't actually know the terms is well taken.

(This is probably the longest post I have ever written on my phone. If it is riddled with spelling errors, I apologize.)

 

Mutual termination with no money being spent by the Fire.

Shaqiri is rich enough that he should not need that "cushion" of Joe's money.

Plus, it seems obvious that he really wanted to leave. If so, he is probably willing to take a slight financial hit.

Again, I look back to Bastian's situation when he came here. He was making double at ManU than we paid him. He could have easily just ridden out the rest of the season in Manchester (he had returned to the first team after Jose's humiliation of him by making him train with the youth squad) whether he played or not. He chose a massive pay cut to leave and join The Fire.

The Fire did not treat Shaqiri poorly, but he knew he had no future here, so take the hit (if there is one) and move back to his original team to finish his career.

Of course, Basel will probably sell him in January/May to a team in Saudi Arabia for $5,000,000 and the Fire will look like chumps...again.