League paid big for Zakuani

[jloome]

...whose Generation Adidas deal is apparently worth $175,000 per season.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider/

They must be pretty confident. Of course, it doesn't affect the cap, but it does set an interesting salary precedent for coveted rookies.

[Ossington Mental Youth]

not bad, ideally the league gets their moneys worth, definite shows some potential in the league investing into young players

[Yohan]

i guess the league is sick of any half decent talent running off to Europe

[Oldtimer]

The number one last year signed for $130K.

[rocker]

the thing is, if one of these GAs is good enough to play enough, he will be graduated at the end of the season. We never did find out what the threshold was, but both Wynne and Edu graduated before last season with TFC. That meant their contracts counted against the cap.
So while I hope Zakuani enjoys his $$$$, he's probably going to be forced to the bench for most of the season since the team's cap would take a $175K hit the next season if he plays regularly.

[jesse]

the thing is, if one of these GAs is good enough to play enough, he will be graduated at the end of the season. We never did find out what the threshold was, but both Wynne and Edu graduated before last season with TFC. That meant their contracts counted against the cap.
So while I hope Zakuani enjoys his $$$$, he's probably going to be forced to the bench for most of the season since the team's cap would take a $175K hit the next season if he plays regularly.

I think for the second-year of a GA contract (usually they're three years) only 1/2 of the salary is a cap-hit, things may have changed though.

[rocker]

I think for the second-year of a GA contract (usually they're three years) only 1/2 of the salary is a cap-hit, things may have changed though.

last year at this time, I asked mlsintoronto (Paul Beirne) about the cap hit of Edu and he told me Edu was off the GA and on the cap completely cuz he played so many games in Year 1.

[T_Mizz]

That sounds about right, GA is there to protect the players who're too young to be expected to contribute but when he's our best player he doesn't need it

[oxygenatedbrain]

the thing is, if one of these GAs is good enough to play enough, he will be graduated at the end of the season. We never did find out what the threshold was, but both Wynne and Edu graduated before last season with TFC. That meant their contracts counted against the cap.
So while I hope Zakuani enjoys his $$$$, he's probably going to be forced to the bench for most of the season since the team's cap would take a $175K hit the next season if he plays regularly.

Shouldn't we assume the Zakuani contract would be structured like Edu's and Wynne's contracts were, such that the base salary was quite low (75k and 47.5k respectively)...and is our best information still that that number is the maximum cap hit? Total compensation up to, respectively, 157.5k and 150k, is mostly in the bonus category, paid by Adidas, and not charged against the cap? So Wynne, who according to Mo is in the fourth of a his six year contract, still isn't a big cap hit...

The decision about whether a GA player graduates to senior roster status is made in-house by the "MLS competition committee" before each season, right?

[rocker]

Shouldn't we assume the Zakuani contract would be structured like Edu's and Wynne's contracts were, such that the base salary was quite low (75k and 47.5k respectively)...and is our best information still that that number is the maximum cap hit? Total compensation up to, respectively, 157.5k and 150k, is mostly in the bonus category, paid by Adidas, and not charged against the cap? So Wynne, who according to Mo is in the fourth of a his six year contract, still isn't a big cap hit...

Steve Goff in his blog last year said that those "base" and "total compensation" categories from the union documents in no way represent what amount actually counts against the cap. We can't be confident that the cap hit for win is $47,500. The union wouldn't know those details anyways, since the league doesn't share that kind of stuff with them. They know what guys are paid, but they don't know how the league apportions those payments for their own competitive purposes.

But we do know, from mlsintoronto, that a graduation situation exists at which point their contract (whatever # that is) counts against the cap. The committee does review those cases. But when a guy graduates from GA, we don't know what they do with the amounts. Is it a complete cap hit? some part? What number counts? I have personally noticed that GA players often don't play much. This may be cuz the guys are young and not ready, or it may be that the teams know what triggers the cap hit and try to keep the guy below that. Why would they fear a 48K cap hit next season anyways? I think it could be because the cap hit is more than that base amount we see. But I don't know for sure.

Now, if the guy is a great great player, they just suck it up and accept the graduation and the cap hit. No sense waiting. But to use a guy on GA as a spare part and have him graduate because of it, would probably be a waste, in their minds.

The rules are so vague really.