Musa Released and Sporting KC complete trade with D.C. United

With the season quickly sneaking up on us, Sporting Kansas City just can’t stop making roster moves. On Thursday the club released midfielder James Musa. Musa was primarily featured for the Swope Park Rangers in 2017 and only made one appearance for SKC last season. He joins Tyler Pasher and Kevin Oliveira who got moved up to Sporting too soon and are already released in under a year.

Oddly, before we knew Musa was released, Phoenix Rising FC (USL) announced they had signed him (whoops!). As a Phoenix Rising season ticket holder, I’ll be sure to keep an eye on Musa and keep everyone informed. He will be joining fellow former Sporting KC man, Amadou Dia on PRFC.

Musa leaving frees up an international roster spot for Sporting to potentially use on a Designated Player #9 that the team still indicated it’s pursuing. He became expendable with the Brad Evans signing since he can play the same spot (as can Felipe Gutierrez and rookie Graham Smith — not to mention Ilie).

In other SKC news, D.C. United sent $100,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM) to KC in exchange for $140,000 in Targeted Allocation Money. In classic Peter Vermes fashion, he got a better deal than Toronto FC who completed a deal with D.C. United earlier in the offseason in a GAM/TAM swap. In that prior deal, every dollar of GAM was worth 1.5 dollars of TAM. Vermes got D.C. to agree to a 1.4 ratio.

Without getting too complicated, GAM can basically be spent on any part of the roster whether it be top, bottom or middle. TAM essentially can only be used on signings between $500K and $1.5 million. SKC should be flush with TAM after all their trades and the new $2.8 million in discretionary TAM introduced to the league this offseason.