Vancouver and Arnoux

We’ve discussed this topic before. The Vancouver Whitecaps are still hoping to have Cody Arnoux on their roster for next year for their first season in Major League Soccer. The MLS front office continues to think that Arnoux should be placed in either a weighted lottery or the MLS SuperDraft in January.

All of this continues to get more confusing really. The Vancouver Sun is reporting today that the Whitecaps have signed him for 2011, despite what MLS has said in the past about handling him. Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi said Arnoux’s 2011 deal hasn’t been approved by MLS officials yet as the league and the club battle over his status.

Its all tricky due to the fact that Arnoux spent time in Europe with Everton’s reserve team. Yes reserve team, not the main squad in the EPL with Timmy Howard but the reserve team. Based on how the league handles Americans returning to MLS or coming to MLS for the first time from Europe they feel the weighted lottery (or even in this case the SuperDraft) is the way to go. I get that but all this for a guy to spent time on a EPL reserve side seems a bit much at this point.

I know the league doesn’t want any team to have an unfair advantage when coming into the league as an expansion team but Vancouver feels that since they had him on their D-2 roster then they get first crack at signing him. Which in a way is the case of how they’re going about it here.

Basically Vancouver doesn’t want to spend a draft pick on this guy. In a way I don’t blame them because at this point he’d probably be more of a late first rounder or even a early second rounder in next January’s draft. Plus Arnoux picked up an injury in the D-2 playoffs so I can’t imagine his draft stock would be overly high right now. The league just doesn’t want Vancouver to have their cake and eat it too it seems at this point.

What do you all think? Should Vancouver have to draft him in the SuperDraft? Or should he be placed in a weighted lottery that Vancouver (and Portland) would have the top chances of winning? Or should the league just allow Vancouver to sign him?