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After much speculation over the last couple of weeks, Columbus Crew SC fans now know what the team has done with their number one spot in the allocation order. The club signed Krisztian Nemeth and traded him to the New England Revolution.
In return, Crew SC received $200,000 in Targeted Allocation Money for the 2018 MLS season, $200,000 in General Allocation Money for the 2018 MLS season, and an international roster spot for the 2017 and 2018 season.
Columbus wasn’t done there as the club moved to acquire another international roster spot for the 2017 season from the Philadelphia Union. The Black & Gold sent $50,000 in General Allocation Money to complete the transaction. Crew SC now have 11 international spots for this season.
With the introduction of the club’s third Designated Player, Pedro Santos, on Tuesday and a lack of international roster spots, this move makes sense for the Black & Gold. Players such as Lalas Abubakar and Cristian Martinez will no longer have to be loaned out to maintain roster compliance.
With the influx of allocation money from the Nemeth and Ethan Finlay trades, Crew SC got $825k in allocation to use in addition to taking Finlay’s salary off the books, although the team will still pay part of it for the 2017 season. It adds up to over $1 million of salary cap room for the upcoming 2018 season.
Per Major League Soccer, the allocation order is a means to determine which MLS clubs have the ability to acquire a player listed on the Allocation Ranking. The lists consists of selection U.S. Men’s National Team players, elite youth U.S. National team players and former MLS players who have left the league on a transfer fee of more than $500,000.
This order is determined by the reverse order of the clubs’ standings at the end of the previous season and playoff performances are taken into account. New expansion clubs sit at the top of the order. Once a club uses its allocation ranking to acquire a player, the team then moves to the bottom of the list with the rankings being reset at the end of each MLS League season, meaning Columbus now sits at the bottom in 2017.