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The list of players traded in the past six months for Allocation Money should give you a bit of a sense of how much it can be worth: Alvaro Fernandez, Jamison Olave & Fabian Espindola, Ryan Johnson and even Omar Cummings.
This Allocation Money can do magical things.
Allocation money does not count against a club’s salary budget and can be used:
Simple right? The ability to avoid the tight salary cap for a player or two or three (or infinity...we'll get to that) is worth high quality players already proven to be good MLS players.
Quite frankly he who controls the Allocation Money controls the league. With this "Money" teams can avert the salary cap in ways that give them extra high value, near DP quality players. With this "Money" a team can sign new players to the league. With "Money" a team can become more than just an MLS side, but a great squad in the region.
Not without reason was the Allocation Money often called "the secret coinage." Without money, the league's teams could not move. Money precipitated the "navigation trance" by which a transfer pathway could be "seen" before it was traveled. Without money and its amplification of the league salary system, life expectancy of the dynasties degenerated by a factor of at least four. Even the vast lower class of the MLS ate diluted money in small sprinklings with at least one meal a year.
Allocation Money is passed out for many things, but the two most common for existing teams are simple - be below average or advance in international competition. House Garber passes it out and controls it. It is metered and distributed simply. You get your quota and need to use it. You can trade it for other assets, assets that in the short term are probably more valuable than the money, but in the end, you lose it.
Teams with high amounts of Allocation Money get around salary constraints. They sign Swedish nationals, American forwards to complement their DPs and high draft picks. Gather enough and the system of House Garber is blown apart.
How can one acquire the money besides being poor or great? That is the key. Mining the money, or finding a way to create it.
the transfer of a player to a club outside of MLS for value
Selling on is the mining of melange. It grants powers. It empowers teams to become more.
It is time. It is time to mine the melange. To become a Great House. No longer will House Hanauer be considered formerly great. It could be a hollow moment. That struggle and sacrifice of losing great lieutenants of the House. They did well with in the Rave and Blue. Our crest they bore.
But with money so much more can happen. To be a dynasty, a Great House of MLS 3.0, requires risk. Be it through loan or sale, the side could be "weakened" while it is in fact strengthened. It is a path that will require consistent selling on. It will mean the regular loss of great captains. At times this will seem harsh, in the end it is necessary.
But to get the spice, to gather it to you and usurp the powers will require risk and loss. It will be perpetual, consistent. It is a fuel to greatness. It is necessary.
Allocation Money is "A poison — so subtle, so insidious . . . so irreversible. It wont even kill you unless you stop taking it."
Do not stop taking it. We need more. It is our spice, our addiction, our path from merely good to Great. There is room amongst the Great Houses of Arena/Payne, Bradley/Wilt and Arena/Donovan. It is time to mine the spice.