Report: Sporting KC makes substantial offer for van der Vaart

After confirming that Sporting Kansas City is pursuing Rafael van der Vaart over the weekend, a report has now surfaced that Sporting KC has made a substantial offer to the veteran midfielder. German newspaper Bild is reporting that the offer is €4.3 million, or approximately $4.8 million to join MLS.

The reported $4.8 million would place van der Vaart pretty high on the salary list for MLS, still below Kaka ($7.1M), Dempsey ($6.7M), Bradley ($6.5M) and above Jones ($3.5M) to name a few.

Hamburg SV sits just above the relegation zone by one point. While it has appeared at times that van der Vaart was out of favor at Hamburg SV, he has started 15 of their 23 matches and leads the team with four goals.

It is expected that van der Vaart will have to take a serious pay cut from his current €3.5m to stay at his beloved Hamburg. Would the World Cup veteran be willing to come to MLS for a pay raise and how well would he fit into a "Sporting Fit" world that has not always been kind to Designated Players in the past?

UPDATE:

had productive disc w rvdV, family and representatives this weekend. We didn't speak about money in any detail and the report is incorrect

— Robb Heineman (@RobbHeineman) March 3, 2015

Robb sends out an update this morning debunking the high dollar figure quoted in the article. In fact, he says that they did not speak about money in any detail.