WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

Remember a couple weeks ago when all most sites would talk about was the MLS return of Brian McBride? Yeah, well fast forward to today and we are still left with no deal and a lot of guessing about what is going on behind the scenes with the Chicago Fire and Toronto FC.

Toronto being the allocation-holders of McBride’s MLS rights have made this deal tricky. Even though he cannot actually play in the league until after July 15, talks have been on-going for a while to get him on the field when that date rolls around. Right now, they’ve hit a wall.

Fire technical director Frank Klopas was quoted by the Chicago Tribune about the Fire’s trade talks with Toronto FC and stated the Reds are trying to land multiple players in any deal for the McBride allocation slot.

Apparently some sources surrounding the two sides say differnet things. Chicago is saying Toronto is asking for too much, while Toronto says they’ve asked for certain players and have been denied. It seems like the Reds are interested in either Justin Mapp, Logan Pause, Wilham Conde, or Chris Rolfe.

I wouldn’t be too shocked to see another player or two in there be mentioned that Chicago would want to dump for salary reasons in the end.

The main thing the Fire keep saying to Toronto is “do the right thing, let the man (McBride) come home and play out his career where he wants to.”

But Mo Johnston is doing what he feels is best for Toronto, and that is continuing to pressue Chicago into trading a couple players, picks, money for the allocation spot. If Chicago were in the western conference you could bet that Mo would be a little more willing to do such a thing. But against a conference rival, he is putting his best interest in front of the player.

Some are wondering when the league will take steps and get involved in this deal. They’ve done so in the past with deals involving star players and will more than likely do so with this case if it isn’t finalized well before the July 15 opening of the transfer window. Thing is in years past the league had one or two owners so they were able to do that kind of pencil-rule writing for star players. No days that isn’t the case, and you can bet one owner would not like to be “worked” by another and by the league.

A deal will get done before long that much I am sure. I honestly feel that sure Toronto should do the right thing and get McBride to Chicago a little easier but at the same time Chicago needs to just step up and suck it up. They could stand to trade a part or two so there is no reason for people to get upset at Toronto in this deal. We all want what’s best for our clubs and you can’t blame the Reds for doing just that.

Popularity: 1% [?]