Sporting KC Acquire Allocation Money for Herculez Gomez's MLS Rights and International Spot

One of the great case studies of players' rights in MLS has finally reached a conclusion. Today, Sporting KC and Toronto FC announced that they'd reached a trade yesterday before the window closed that saw Kansas City send the rights of first refusal of Herculez Gomez to Toronto FC for allocation money.

Gomez, the 33 year old former US national team forward also signed with Toronto after the trade. Kansas City had held Gomez's MLS rights because they had made him a qualifying offer after his contract was up after the 2009 MLS season. Under the league's collective bargaining agreement at the time, because KC made a qualifying offer, they held onto Gomez's rights in MLS, meaning he could not play anywhere in MLS without Kansas City being compensated.

Instead, Gomez went to Mexico, where he had a successful career that saw him get back into the national team picture and earn a trip to the 2010 World Cup. He scored 37 goals over the course of 5 years with seven teams.

Gomez was never going to return to Kansas City after his departure in 2009 because of his feelings regarding Peter Vermes, Kansas City, their offer to him in 2009, and the team holding onto his MLS rights even though he was never going to return. The rights issue caused a lot of issues for Gomez, who spoke out about that fact on numerous occasions during his time in Mexico.  It seems in the end though that the league stepped in to help broker a deal between TFC and KC to get Gomez back to MLS.

Toronto and Gomez meet Kansas City tomorrow at BMO Field in league action, and while it'd certainly add to the story line if Gomez is able to play, and even more so if he were to score, I'm not sure he'd play just a day after the deal was done, but stranger things have happened.

UPDATE: Sporting KC picked up more allocation money today through a second trade. Kansas City sent one of their international spots that they were not currently using to the Colorado Rapids in exchange for allocation money. The international spot is only for this season and will return to Kansas City on 12/31/15.

Another good bit of business for KC as they weren't going to use all their international spots this season.