The Houston Chronicle’s Jose de Jesus Ortiz has done some great work keeping everyone current on the push and pull of Geoff Cameron’s efforts to move abroad, to England’s Stoke City.
The latest, he reports, is a yawning gap in the asking price.
So Cameron is healthy (after missing the Dynamo’s last two matches with a hamstring strain) and wants to be available for tomorrow’s big match against D.C. United.
You could make an argument, I suppose, that Cameron should be left on the bench, not just in favor of players who have been on the field lately, but also to protect the transfer value – since the pushing and pulling all seems to be about asking price, a.k.a. “value.”
Sounds like the meeting point is around $3 million; Houston and MLS want more while Stoke naturally prefers to pay less.
This is all about the league trying to protect the value of its players, not wishing to set financially damaging precedents by selling too low. Of course, it’s a tough spot, because fans generally side with players, understandably wanting to see the athletes do what they like to do.
A $3 million price would match a record for an MLS defender; Tim Ream went to Bolton earlier this year for that amount.