its great that the Hunts are trying to keep Cooper, but this just seems plain cruel. They pay him nothing near his worth and can’t reward great duty with a chance to live out his dream. Even the new salary offer seems to underbid his true value

Seems like the only fair thing to do is let him go or make him a DP, and given those choices, just let the guy go. He deserves more money, but the team deserves more for a DP. This is just a case of MLS not being as well-off financially as European Leagues. We lose- so don’t make the guy miserable over it.

Coopers payment in Dallas is bad, the offers from Cardiff and Rosenborg is inevitable, Also, the US league has never the chance to play against the greater team for serious, but only in friendship games. Cardiff also cannot play in the european championship UNLESS they are good enough to reach the FA Cup final and win it! But Rosenborg, which is now in 2nd round of qualifying to the UEFA Cup has been playing in europe for like, 20 years now, in row! And still, the norwegian league is not done and still, we don’t know which team will win the league, Rosenborg had a bad league last year because they had alot of good players leaving and the team got weaker, looking at their performance these days now, they are able to take back the norwegian title and qualify for UEFA Champions League, and isn’t that what Cooper wants to do? Isn’t that his dream? To playin the europe? FC Dallas should not then, ruin his dreams.

jamie –

deserves for more a DP?!! its kenny ******* cooper!! He leaves it out on the field every time he plays. Hes a great professional and a great player that is still young and has tons and tons of potential. Derserves more from a DP my ass.

man what is this; if he wants to go let him. Wow that’s actually horrible. I think he should go to Europe and get better and make the national team. Fine FCD owns him and Toja but they arent slaves. If they want to go then let them and replace them with guys that are like them young talented americans or young talented South Americans not some wash out alcoholic old guy.

I’m glad to see the Hunts are trying to keep Kenny in Hoops, at least until the end of the season. If they are unable to meet an agreement on a contract with him (and if that’s all Rosenborg are offering, I can’t see why we wouldn’t offer him at least the same along with the DP slot that money requires), then at least it give Schellas time to find a replacement for next season.

Having said that, I’m not sure not even allowing him to visit Cardiff and Rosenborg is the best way of endearing themselves to him

Zach- just to be clear, I am a huge supporter of Cooper. He couldn’t do any more on the field. But the DP slot carries an expectation for marketing as well. And I’d like to see it used to bring in a partner for Cooper. I don’t want it just used by default. Cooper deserves to go to Europe and the team is being short-sighted by not letting him do it. It’s all just my opinion. Yours is just as valid.

Well, I understand their purpose of trying to hold on to him but this could really hurt the moral of the team so I hope they work through this.

This team has been through a lot and keeping someone from a dream or goal in their life just is not fair. He deserves to go and he wants to go so they should allow him to do so.

Cooper or Toja will never give up on the team but I know in the back of their minds they will wonder….what if and that could really impact them on a personal and mental level.

Hope things work out for the best for both of them.

this is a horrible business move. it makes sense for THIS SEASON only, but Coop will fly as soon as he can, especially considering how they’ve handled his money in the past… I hope Kenny is gone ASAP because he deserves better than this crap treatment.

RE: OMGFCD – “Cooper or Toja will never give up on the team but I know in the back of their minds they will wonder….what if and that could really impact them on a personal and mental level.”

you are right, they will not give up while they are here, but it is human nature that as soon as they’re off the leash, they will have ZERO interest in staying.

With Lamar Hunt being such a pioneer in so many sports, its a shame how much the name makes me cringe now.

Could be good longterm for both Coop and FCD. If he stays healthy and continues his scoring pace, bigger clubs with bigger budgets could come calling in the winter. I hope the FO ends up signing him to $415k/season with a clause that forces FCD/MLS to accept any transfer bid > $5mill come winter.

Nothing personal, folks, but I’ve gotta laugh at any of you who think the Hunts are being cruel, terrible, etc, and are “ruining the dreams” of Kenny Cooper. Please. Pretty sure the priority of the Hunts is FCD first, anything else second. And if they think that the best thing for FCD is keeping Cooper at least through the end of this year, while also attempting to work out something longer term, then good on them. I know that I, personally, would have been more pissed off if they had just let him go, and done nothing in the way of attempting to keep him around. Should they have done something sooner? Maybe. But at least they’re not going to lose the current face of this franchise without a fight. To me, anyway, that’s nice to see. There is no evidence that Kenny Cooper will suddenly stop working as hard as he does or producing the way he does if these transfers are denied. He’ll still have the same dreams, which will more than likely be able to come true a few more months down the road, at the very least.

And, while it’s true that these players are not “slaves” (and could we please back off on this sort of comparison?), they are, in fact, under contract to FCD/MLS. As such, there is nothing that requires the Hunts or any other owners to sell these players during this particular transfer window.

Which brings me to Jamie’s comment re: DP’s and their “expectation for marketing”. Not sure what more you would want/need for marketing than “local boy becomes superstar”, but if FCD/MLS couldn’t market a player who does all that Cooper does for this team, then I think that reflects more on them than it does Cooper’s ability to be marketed. This kid is the current face of this franchise, for damn good reason, and I’m gonna enjoy every last day he’s still wearing FCD colors – even if it is only until the end of this season.

Man, I was certain we were going to take the transfer money and run on this one. I understand Cooper is an essential piece of our team this year, but if anyone thinks this team is even the tiniest bit ready to compete for the league title they are crazy.

We should have taken the transfer money and use it to get some players that could help us build towards next season. Plus this might have just put Cooper into a whole new state of mind about the franchise. He may not be going now, but he is as good as gone come winter.

Cooper: “Just when I try to get out, they pull me back in”

This is only a good thing if Kenny is legitimately interested in signed a new contract for FCD. If not, I just have to think they’re poisoning the relationship. In THAT case, I’d be tempted to take out of those Lloyds of London insurance policies then play out the original contract.

Wow… I can’t even figure out what possible alternative sentence structure I had in mind that made me leave “signed” in that last comment.

If true, the Hunt’s have just guaranteed Cooper will be leaving. But when he leaves they will get nothing but an allocation rather than a nice transfer fee….

I don’t want to see him go, but the fact is he is good enough to go to Europe and is being paid peanuts here.

If you want a REALLY unsubstantiated rumor, somebody on the Cardiff board is claiming Cooper is in Cardiff getting a medical exam.

Cooper can become Twellman if this is rejected so it won’t be.

marco4,

i agree about him being under contract and the Hunts needing to do what is best for FCD, but I don’t agree that handcuffing players is what is best for FCD. IF this is true…

1) its a huge PR hit
2) he goes on his own way and they don’t get nearly equal compensation as they’d get from this type of transfer
3) Their treatment of the situation would turn off up and coming players from signing long term deals

Would you be singing the same tune if FCD told Dax and Brek, etc that they could not go and play for the US in the olympics? Or if Coop, Drew were called to the Sr Squad, should FCD say “not on our watch, boys!” …

Granted, I don’t know the exact rules governing allowing someone to play on the National team or not, but i have read of a few instances of squads and NTs conflicting, so the analogy still applies…

Sometimes the best thing to do as an organization is to do the best thing for the player, not what necessarily will help win games RIGHT NOW.

I stand with the Hunt family on this one. Cooper is the face of the franchise, worth more than 4 million to us. The Krafts did the same thing with Taylor Twellman and were right to do so. A contract is a contract, and slaves don’t make 80 grand a year (I agree he is worth much more).

My guess is that MLS will offer him some sort of 2-year guaranteed deal which will hold up until the EPL comes calling with their insane cash.

Marco, I agree. 1 yr left on the contract he signed? I hope he has fired his original agent. Coop is an FCD/MLS asset until his contract expires. By FCD not accepting the first offer it has already almost doubled. Lets see how high the transfer fee can go, Altidore was worth 10mm right?

My information is that Cooper has 2 more seasons on his contract after this one.

mostly agree with marco4 except I would say “pretty sure the priority of the Hunts is $ $ $ first, second, and third”. It’s so tough to make ends meet these days when you only have $4.6 billion in the bank.

FCD isn’t selling for the same reason that ManU hasn’t sold C. Ronaldo — when most of your goals come from one guy (even more now that Alvarez is gone) it’s very difficult to replace him. Cooper is our Ronaldo, even if it’s at a different level. Guys who can score are the rarest commodity in the soccer world and you don’t let go of them easily or cheaply.

While I do hope that Cooper gets to go where he wants, here’s another way of looking at it. Let’s remember that Cooper already had one shot at Europe and came back to Dallas because it didn’t work out the way he wanted. He could have stayed and played for a team there if he wanted. So it’s not like he’s never had a chance to go to Europe and play — he already did once. FCD found a way to bring him back and basically helped resurrect his career and make him a better player, all from the friendly confines of his home town. He’s still got plenty of room for improvement, but he’s a better player now than when he came back to Dallas. He’s been a model pro, always giving max effort, but he should always be grateful for FCD taking him back after his initial failure in Europe, so if he has to wait a few months, then I say that’s okay.

told u guys that he would get $1million in one of the earlier threads, but some smartass denied what i said.

“FCD found a way to bring him back and basically helped resurrect his career …., but he should always be grateful for FCD taking him back after his initial failure in Europe”

I would not call his first stint a failure and it is kind of hard to resurrect a career that is just getting started. He went over for the summer before college to work out and got a contract from Manchester United. He came back so he could get some first team action instead of playing reserves. I think if any thing he did FC Dallas the favor by taking a small contract and providing great play for very little. At 24 years old he will still improve weather here or overseas.

To Jeremy… Couple of things. First, what if this actually works out for BOTH parties (FCD and Cooper)? What if FCD is able to put together a package that Cooper accepts? What will the PR be like then? Pretty damn good, I’d bet. How will the other players look at it then? Pretty damn positively, I’d bet. What if the end result here not only helps the team win RIGHT NOW, but also in the future? Pretty sure Cooper would help with both. The thing that’s wrong with comments like yours is that they’re assuming the worst, stated in the most definitive of terms. Yeah, it sure could be a huge PR hit, but it isn’t one just yet. How about we see how it shakes out first? Sure, the Hunts are taking a risk here, but I’d like to assume it’s a calculated one. If it flops, then they’re gonna hear it. But if it works out, then we should damn well let them hear that, too.

Second, FCD didn’t have an option as it regards letting Dax go to the Olympics. This is a FIFA sanctioned U23 competition, and, therefore, they were required to let him go. Not that they would have stopped him, anyway. As for the Sr. National Team, please be serious. Give me one single example of a Dallas team that has ever denied such an opportunity. Yes, clubs around the world have certainly had conflicts with national federations, but Dallas ain’t one of them. I can’t imagine it’s happened all that often in all of MLS, for that matter.

To the other alex… Yeah, I should have been a touch more clear on that. I meant their first priority in a situation like this. Obviously, the first priority in general is the $$$, but first priority in a player contract issue is certainly FCD interests over those of the player. As it should be.

KC is under contract, and MLS can always tell suitors to pound sand (see Twellman, Taylor)…but I think FCD ownership should bump KC’s pay to $300/400k through the end of the season, hopefully make the playoffs, then bend over backwards to make sure he lands at a top flight club, AND lobby Mr. Bradley to get him on the MNT. The ownership of the FCD can turn this into a positive if they tell KC they’re on his side and want to get him transferred at $6M, w/$1.2M in salary or more, instead of $4M w/$600k or so in salary, and w/a better team. They’ll screw this whole thing up, though, if they take the approach of ‘we own you, so shut up and take it like a man’….

This is good news. The Hunt’s are under no obligation to sell a player to Europe. The Revs nixed offers for TT and Joseph…and they play for a championship each year.

You don’t win by selling your best players. KCJ is under contract for 2 more years. The Hunt’s can renegotiate the terms of his present contract, which they’re already agreed to do.

This is the MLS. A couple of key moves at the right time and you’re a contender. The season is not over and KCJ is an important part of this team this year.

Perhaps ‘failure’ is too strong of a word, but he never broke into the first team at ManU (no shame there), didn’t get any playing time on loan in Portugal, and was then loaned out to Oldham before he came home – so it’s not like he only got a chance in ManU’s reserves. Maybe I should have called it a “strong lack of success”. But he’s taken that lack of success and turned it into something excellent here, and that’s to be commended, but let’s not gloss over his first shot at Europe.

Oh, and Cooper’s rights were owned by Kansas City, so FCD worked a deal to bring him back home — they bent over backwards to make it possible to play here — it seems to me that the favor-doing was pretty one-sided. Here’s an article from when he signed: http://www.soccertimes.com/mls/2006/feb06.htm

Again, I’m a huge Cooper fan and I hope he gets to go where he wants, but I do think there’s another side to the story and we shouldn’t pile on the Hunts, who brought him here in the first place.

Baconboy

perhaps you and I view things differently. When Kenny went to Man U he was coming back to play for SH at SMU in the fall. It was as much a camp experince as a tryout. Man U was impressed and so instead of playing NCAA ball he played reserves in England and when it was graduation time signed with MLS. So I look at his first Europe stint as better preperation than SMU would have been making it nothing near a failure.

As far as a favor to bring him to Dallas I guess we are doing every local player a favor that we bring to Dallas ie Guarda. I think FC Dallas has gotten much more from Cooper than he has from them and I am not tryining to say bad things about the Hunts because I appreciate everything they try to do for Dallas soccer. Again I just disagreed with you thoughts.

Soccerroo, fair enough that we disagree and I appreciate you doing so in a civil way. Cooper is a class act, and it appears from the FCDallas press release, a class act that we’ll be seeing for the remainder of the season.

I am glad Copper is staying. So if Cooper wasn’t playing well right now could FCD cut his pay. No! The guy agreed to a contract.

They could not cut his pay, but they would trade him. TRUST ME THEY WOULD TOO.

The Cooper’s will never sign anything with FCD ever again. When you are misled/lied to, well you just don’t business with those ever again.
This one is done now or in January but it done….no Cooper in Dallas beyond 2008.

FriscoFan, in regards to NE and they way they’ve handled Twellman and Joseph, something tells me that Twellman hasnt been so “injured” that he cant play in any games for NE this season. I think he had one of those NBA-type “lower back strains” like Dwayne Wade had at the end of this season so he didnt have to play anymore and Miami could have more lottery points.

Joseph is playing so well that it behooves him to stay on the field and prove his worth. He’s a Grenada native and will earn a UK work permit cuz he has the caps with his Nats. He showed out against West Ham and has played well in all other exhibitions, including Superliga and Champions Cup. He’ll get his payday soon.

Anybody expect Kenny Cooper to be closer to the Twellman act of the Shalrie Joseph act? My guess is Joseph, but i wouldnt be mad if he shut it down and waited for january.

I will go on record now. Cooper will give it his best shot to bring a Champioship to Dallas. He has a chance to score more than 20 goals. I coached this kid, he is a bull dog thru and thru. Thank goodness for Schellas. He knows Cooper will run thru a wall for him and this franchise. I talked with Jr after the LA game, All he would say is, this one is for Schellas.

How much longer does mls own cooper?

I just really hope Super Cooper does not pick up another injury after this sale did not go through. If he gets hurt again like he did last year there will be no high transfer fee for us to collect.

According to a 3rd Degree source close to the transfer negotiations, Clark and Dan Hunt have rejected the transfer offers from Rosenborg and Cardiff City for FC Dallas’ star striker Kenny Cooper Jr. Rosenborg had the lesser of the two offers, reported to be in the $3 million US range, with Cardiff coming in at $4 million US. Cooper had previously asked for permission from FCD to travel to both clubs to give them a look over, but he has been denied permission to visit both clubs by the Hunts.

Alex, this is a business and not youth soccer or college…..the rah rah stuff doesn’t work for long at this level. His recent good play has been all about leaving for Europe and if that’s taken away then Coop & his people just treat it like business and move in January.

“Could be good longterm for both Coop and FCD. If he stays healthy and continues his scoring pace, bigger clubs with bigger budgets could come calling in the winter. I hope the FO ends up signing him to $415k/season with a clause that forces FCD/MLS to accept any transfer bid > $5mill come winter.”

I’m okay with this

To “zarco”… First, you’re taking away from my memories of someone of that nickname who served this team with honor for several years with each and every one of your arrogant, insulting comments. Since you probably won’t go away, at least pick another name to use. We’ll still be able to tell it’s you.

Next, if you really believe that Cooper’s “recent good play has been all about leaving for Europe”, than you’re even more ignorant than I’ve already given you credit for. That kid has given it his all for this team since day one, and to state otherwise does a tremendous disservice to someone you clearly just want to see get the hell out of Dallas. Doesn’t exactly jive with your obvious agenda.

baconboy, you have some of your “facts” wrong. Cooper played in 8 games in the top Portuguese division (for one of the worst teams) while on loan from Man.Utd. He went to Old Trafford for a one week try-out and got a $250,000 a year guaranteed deal out of it from arguably the best club on the planet. If thats “failure” then bring it on.

to fan: “So if Cooper wasn’t playing well now could FC Dallas cut his pay” No, but they could cut him. The option rests with the club, not the player. From a players point of view the standard MLS contract isn’t worth the paper its printed on.

[...] Kenny Cooper is going nowhere. It’s bittersweet news for me. KC is the team and we would do terribly without him, but the transfer fee was quite sizable and the move would be good for Kenny. In the end, I think he should have been allowed to leave. To me, this season is already bordering on lost cause. [...]

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