Despite a wealth of interest from international clubs, Real Salt Lake still aren’t ready to close a deal that will ship promising young defender Carlos Salcedo out for good.
That’s according to RSL technical director Craig Waibel, who told the Salt Lake Tribune that rumors linking Salcedo to Liga MX club Chivas de Guadalajara or any other clubs are still premature.
Salcedo took to his personal Twitter account on Saturday and said he was hoping to reach an agreement with Chivas soon and a number of Mexican media outlets confirmed the deal was in place, but Waibel responded by saying that RSL hold the cards when it comes to the 21-year-old Mexico youth international.
"There have been multiple clubs, yes,” Waibel told the Tribune on Monday. "At the moment. I believe there are multiple clubs. There’s ongoing things with more and more clubs interested as more articles get written.
“That’s why one of the tricky spots in this whole thing is that there shouldn’t be any concession on this — we own Carlos, we own his rights and he’s under contract with us."
In the last two years, Salcedo totaled 20 regular-season starts for Real Salt Lake, although he did not feature in the team's postseason runs. The center back joined the Real Salt Lake academy in January 2012, trained with the first team during the second half of that year and signed a Homegrown Player contract in January 2013.
But after Real Salt Lake's season ended, Salcedo posted a message on Twitter, saying he had "decided not [to] stay with RSL for [the] 2015 season."
However, Real Salt Lake picked up Salcedo's contract option for 2015.
"I would say ‘a finalized deal’ would be done whenever an opposing club agrees to the price tag that we put on Carlos," Waibel said. "That’s when it’ll get done, no sooner. We’re not in the market of selling Carlos. There are clubs making offers, but we’re not actively trying to sell Carlos. That mistake should not be made in any article.
"That’s a testament to Carlos’ improvement in our club. We’re in negotiation with a couple different teams. With that same thought-process in mind, it’s not a priority of ours to move him immediately. It’s got to be the right deal."
Salcedo plays internationally for Mexico and helped Mexico's Under-21 national team win the Central American and Caribbean Games competition in Veracruz, Mexico, in November. He is expected to be part of Mexico's attempt to qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Before joining Real Salt Lake as a youth player, Salcedo had spent time in the youth programs of both Chivas Guadalajara and Tigres.
