WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

Let’s take one striker off the shortlist of players the New York Red Bulls are after. Reports today say Major League Soccer has blocked a bid for New York to transfer in USL star Macoumba Kandji from Atlanta for $200,000.

According to SBI, the league denied the New York’s club bid for a USL player. That means the league basically passed on the 23-year-old Senegalese striker, who was probably more MLS ready than the league would even admit.

You can’t blame Atlanta for the high transfer fee. USL clubs rarely, if ever, get transfer fees for players they lose. So putting a price tag on a guy that is getting a lot of press makes total sense on their part. Plus that kind of cash would easily come in handy for any USL club which would probably help attract some of the younger developmental players from MLS who aren’t getting paid as much.

The Red Bulls secured the necessary funds to pay the asking price for Kandji when it traded goalkeeper Zach Thornton to Chivas USA for an allocation. The league didn’t like the idea of paying that much to a USL club, thinking it would set up a bad precedent for all of the league.

You know, I get where the league is coming from but it makes little sense for them to step in like this and say no to a club who wants to spend their money like this. Its one of those nit-picky rules wrote in pencil that the league really needs to take a hard look at here real soon and change. The issue wasn’t really the transfer fee itself, I think it was the league not wanting to do that sort of business with the “minor league”. Unfair really all around to both sides.

New York is still looking on the market for a speedy forward. Some have thrown out Dallas’s Dominic Oduro and Colorado’s Omar Cummings. Neither make a lot of sense for their current clubs to trade at the moment. he Red Bulls may wind up adding Gambian Sainey Touray, who has been on trial with the Red Bulls. Its also said that the club is looking into another USL player, Crystal Palace Baltimore (USL-2) Matthew Mbuta, a Cameroon-born winger/midfielder. Most Red Bull fans may recall Mbuta from their US Open Cup loss to Baltimore back in July.

What do you all make of the league stepping in like this? See their point or find them missing the mark on a potential sud of a striker?