Well, I'm not sure Howard made "5 stunning saves" v. Mexico but he did have a great game. Did he recently marry a Hungarian or is his mom from Hungary? I read somewhere else (today's NY Daily News) that MLS said the initial offer was something like a "good starting point" or something to that effect. I guess in the end it depends on what Howards wants to do and if MLS can increase the money closer to $2.5 or so.
...and if the Hungarian he married is the lady he was with at Nevada Smith's for the MLS season opener: double wow! Posh Spice doesn't compare with paprika!
Please. MLS rejected $2.2 million for Ben Olsen. MLS rejected $2+ million for McBride. No possible way Howard goes for less than that. $1.9 mil may be how much ManU offered. Doesn't mean its going to be accepted.
I agree. When this first came up I was thinking in the back of my head about how much they turned down for other players. At the time I was thinking MLS would sell at about $2.5 million for Howard. As for the other question MLS_stats: I'm pretty sure that MLS gets a portion and the player gets a portion (about 10%???)
didn't they turn down a $3MM offer for Adin Brown from Ajax before the 2000 Olympics? I'm thinking Stern John and Eddie Lewis were two of the larger transfer fees. ---- Remeber, though, that the transfer market has collapsed in the last year, and while Real Madrid may still throw a lot of money around, most of the garden variety fees are significantly less than just a few years back. $1.9MM today might have been double that three years ago.
Just curious where this number is from. McBride has consistently said that HE rejected an extension on the loan deal, not MLS. Maybe I missed something else.
On that particular loan deal. Didn't PNE make an offer for him before that, though? The last time he was loaned out?
I don't remember that. I would have taken $3 million for Adin Brown. I'd take $1 million for Adin Brown.
Agreed. MLS should take $1.9 million for Howard. For whatever it's worth, $1.9 in more than an entire team's salary cap of $1.75.
I thought it was $1M from Rosenborg (Norway) for Adin... I think the potential for the Stern John transfer fee was $4 mil after incentives... And we all know what happened there... The $2M offer for McBride was from PNE, and true, it was before the transfer market collapsed. Still, MLS knows that Man U is the richest club in the world, if they want Tim-may! they can shell out the cash.
If you take $1.9 million for Howard, you've set the value of a very, very good player at less than $2 million, and makes it hard to get much more than that for a very, very, very good player if you decide to sell him. The other part of that is that with the transfer market having gone way down lately, I'm not sure you will be able to get much more than that. Maybe. But if ManU really wants him, they'll pay for him. I don't keep track of transfers, but I'm sure somebody does (Rothman's used to, don't know if they still do). I'd like to see what the going rate is in the post-bust world.
Preliminary numbers discussed prior to K/J, which allegedly were inflated after McBride's performance.
I believe Stern John went to Forest between $2MM and $3MM. That being said, I would be surprised if MLS takes the $1.9MM from ManUre. The only way the league says yes is if Nike steps in and says "take it."