More about the Cannon Deal

By: Laurie | January 12th, 2008

Billy Witz at LA Daily News has an interesting article that’s mostly on the Cannon deal. I say mostly, because it also includes this little tidbit:

Mathis, who was acquired from New York for a third-round draft pick in November, is free to transfer outside MLS after his contract with the league — which paid him $410,000 last season — expired Dec. 31. Though negotiations for a new deal had taken place, the Galaxy had not heard from Mathis and were trying to reach him late Thursday to see if he was indeed leaving. (Ergotelis’ Web site showed a photo of Mathis signing what appeared to be a contract.)

Or, in other words, the Galaxy heard it the way the rest of us did — by getting a link to the Ergotelis website. Very professional, Cletus!

Okay, now about that Cannon deal. First off, as commenter Bluemeanies told us yesterday, here’s what we can do with the allocation money we got for Joe:

The allocation money the Galaxy acquired can be used on transfer fees for a foreign player, as a credit against the salary cap, or traded for another designated player slot.

Given the apparent front office fixation with bringing in another DP, my bet would be on the latter, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see it used to up the cap a bit.

(And this is irrelevant at the moment, but might be useful information soon. I have another question for Bluemeanies or anybody else. If a team doesn’t use allocation money to pay a transfer fee, where does the money come from? MLS or the team owner or somewhere else?)

Billy also give us this not-so-comforting information:

Barring any future moves, the Galaxy have put the goalkeeper’s job in the hands of untested Steve Cronin, who has showed enough promise to be called into the national team camp last week and on Wednesday signed a three-year contract extension. Terms were not announced, but Cronin made $42,000 last season.

Cronin, who played sparingly behind veterans Kevin Hartman and Cannon the last three years, has one win in six career starts. He started one MLS game this season — a 2-1 loss to Real Salt Lake when Cannon was resting an injury.

But then again, there is this, which we all prefer to remember: