The World's Game (According to Us)

Peering through the European transfer window.

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Don't get suckered into rental insurance. It's a total scam.

In the international soccer calendar, this month is not called "January" but the "European transfer window," a period during the season when European clubs can buy and sell new players. It's an exciting month for rumor mongers. Right now, if you keep up with newspapers and websites, you probably know that Andrei Arshavin, the baby-faced assassin, is sure to wear an Arsenal shirt soon, that Manchester City are gunning for Yaya, Kolo and all players named Toure and that Kenny "Franken" Cooper is staying in the Lone Star State. Of course, that all may change in the time it takes to finish this sentence.

But despite all this speculation, there is something fundamentally mysterious about the movement of soccer players from team to team. Players and teams rarely disclose the terms of their deals and must navigate a complicated set of rules and arrangements that can leave the average U.S. fan (and we suspect others) slightly bewildered.

Take the case of Landon Donovan. His loan to Bayern Munich has been public knowledge for some time. He was even interviewed about it on the Bayern website last week ("The people in Germany have much greater passion for football," he revealed.) But, for some reason, the L.A. Galaxy and MLS remained silent about the move until Monday, when it was quietly made official.

The concept of the loan—something we don't really have in other American sports—is fairly simple when, say, West Bromwich Albion loans a player to Shrewsbury Town. Shrewsbury picks up the lad's salary during the loan spell. Then he returns to West Brom, unless the loan is treated like a lease with an option to buy, Shrewbury coughs up a transfer fee and takes the player for good.

But with Donovan, we're talking about a player whose rights are controlled not by his team, but by a whole league, going on loan during his offseason (He's due back March 15 unless they work out an extension). Does he get a raise for all those extra games he'll play? Does MLS get some kind of compensation? What if Donovan gets hurt?

We called Donovan's agent Richard Motzkin to get the bottom of the shadowy loan. Predictably, he told us little. It was a difficult three-way negotiation between Bayern, MLS and Landon, Motzkin said, "but where there's a will, there's a way."

We know just as little about David Beckham's similar off-season loan to Milan (He just debuted in a friendly). How much of Becks' complicated, endorsement-heavy, $250 million contract will the Rossoneri pay? Does MLS get reimbursed for every Asian child who was going to buy a Galaxy jersey, but will now be a lifelong supporter of the gambling website BWIN, Milan's shirt sponsor?

Marketing ploys and loan mysteries aside, there is not a lot of movement expected during this transfer period because of the financial crisis. But many feel that deep-pocketed Manchester City will make a splash, which could put manager Mark Hughes in a great position of bargaining strength as a rich, first-time buyer in a buyers' market. But some of his comments seem less than savvy. Hughes essentially admitted last week that his club would have to over-pay, echoing his boss' comments from September.

"We know that there will be a premium that we will probably have to pay, because it's January and teams don't want to lose their better players," he said. "But it will not be to the extent where we are paying hugely over the market value."

Just a little over market value then, Mark?

Maybe he was just being realistic, but it's even harder to understand the logic behind Hughes's recent comments about his players. He singled out three of his stars for igniting unrest in the team, making the Manchester City clubhouse seem a bit like Mutiny on the Bounty. Perhaps this was a complex strategic move to manipulate the transfer market, but we can't possibly understand how publicly ostracizing players can improve one's bargaining position.

Or perhaps the Man City dressing room hides a deeper mystery than transfer fees and loan deals. Perhaps it's not like Mutiny on the Bounty but another Brando movie Apocalypse Now. Will City fans soon be chanting, "the horror, the horror?"

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