In January 2025, MLS headquarters implemented the new‘ CASH FOR PLAYERS’ trade mechanism last month, enabling clubs to swap players for hard cash rather than General Allocation Money( GAM) or other assets.
Previously, teams often felt compelled to shop their players to clubs overseas to reap the biggest possible transfer compensation. Now they have an avenue to make a deal with MLS counterparts who value proven commodities, mindful of the inherent risks around imports to the North American scene.
“ The structure of the cash for player trades was really designed to put the trade on the same footing as a transfer out, so you could compare and contrast and decide which one would be better,” said LaBrie.
CHRISTINA LABRIE, MLS’ s Senior Vice President of Player Relations is a key architect of the new mechanism, an idea she calls“ a team-driven initiative” that CSOs have lobbied for over several years, albeit one which required careful calibration to mesh with the collective bargaining agreement with the MLS Players Association.
“ Our collective bargaining agreement has a lot of rules around our use of general allocation money, how money comes in and out of the system, and so we had to make sure we put guardrails around this to make sure that we weren ' t doing anything to disrupt that structure, because we ' re still operating within the same CBA. So, it was a lot of back and forth with the Players Association in order to make sure that everybody was comfortable with how this was going to be implemented. And that simply takes time.”
Since technical staff tend to plot out their roster-building processes far in advance, over multiple transfer windows, the speed with which Houston and Kansas City pivoted to swing these deals hints at the usefulness of the cash-for-player option in the long run.
“ The two transactions that we saw this weekend were exactly what we were hoping for,” LaBrie told MLSsoccer. com this week.“ These are transactions that could have happened outside the league but instead happened inside the league. We retained two different, but excellent young players, different profiles, different pathways. But what this new cash-for-player trades was able to do was to give the clubs another opportunity, a different opportunity than sending the players abroad.”
SPORTING LAND JOVELJIĆ
The same can be said of Sporting Kansas City’ s swoop for LA Galaxy striker Dejan Joveljić, officially the first-ever use of cash-for-player.
“ Without the new mechanism,” SKC sporting director Mike Burns told MLSsoccer. com on Tuesday,“ it ' s very, very, very unlikely that Dejan would have been with us. I didn ' t foresee a different mechanism by which we would have been able to make a trade with
the Galaxy that would have made sense for us or them.”
A vital cog in LA’ s capture of MLS Cup 2024 presented by Audi with 21 goals across all competitions, Joveljic just aged out of his U22 classification. He justifiably felt he’ d earned a Designated Player-level contract, something LA could not easily offer thanks to Riqui Puig, Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec already occupying those three prestige roster spots.
HOUSTON GETS JACK
Houston Dynamo FC very nearly grabbed the distinction of the first cash-for-player deal ahead of SKC, as they pulled off a trade with the Philadelphia Union to bring homegrown center mid Jack McGlynn to south Texas.
It’ s an intriguing replacement for Héctor Herrera after the Mexican star parted ways with La Naranja at last season’ s end, and a big opportunity for a rising domestic prospect keen to push up the US men’ s national team ranks and chart a path to Europe.
The Union got a guaranteed $ 2.1 million up front, plus a“ significant” sell-on clause media reports place at 50 percent and performance-based bonuses that could garner an additional $ 1.3 million – a decent return for a slick-passing metronome type who never quite fit perfectly into the DOOPers’ rugged press-andcounter system.
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