Originally Posted by
Gogon
None of us know whether it's physical decline, attitudinal decline, off-field impairments, or some combination of the above that made Lawrence no longer a viable option for us. However, I agree with noxx98, we got full value for him. Obviously we way overpaid on the way in, but we got full value on the way out. We need to keep in mind, all players are contracted to the league. The teams pay the salaries, but the league owns the contracts. The MLS league office will have been shopping Lawrence for months to every team in the league, and simply, there were no takers, until MUFC found themselves in a pickle. Even then, they took him, but not his salary. I suspect the issue in getting this or anything done was a negotiation between TFC and the league over salary cap rules. Someone on here earlier described this transaction as “another buyout”. I imagine that is how it has gone down in the end. It has been reported that TFC is picking up the salary and any remaining payments on the transfer fee. But, I’ll bet TFC only eventually agreed to this when the league office agreed to not have Lawrence’s salary and pro rata transfer fee count against the TFC salary cap. Candidly, I consider this a big win for TFC. The actual money involved is a rounding error for MLSE. But avoiding the cap allocation is really important for TFC’s alleged summer roster building. This could have worked out worse if no team was willing to take the seemingly impaired Lawrence. As it has transpired, I think we got full value and then some.
On another note, this might set an important precedent. If an MLS team can transfer a player, pick up the salary, and get cap relief, it gives deep pocketed owners like MLSE effectively an unlimited number of buyouts each year (providing there are teams willing to take our cast-offs for free). This could be big.