TRANSFER TRACKER STATUS:Trade
The Philadelphia Union dealt their way out of the 2019 MLS SuperDraft on Wednesday night, announcing that they'd sent all five of their picks in Friday's draft to FC Cincinnati for up to $200,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM).
In exchange for the picks (Nos. 13, 29, 37, 61 and 85), the Union will receive $150,000 in 2019 GAM. They will receive an extra $50,000 in conditional 2020 GAM, pending certain performance metrics being met by players chosen by Cincinnati in the SuperDraft.
“When evaluating how we want to build our roster for the 2019 season and beyond, we decided that acquiring this money is the best use of our SuperDraft resources,” said Ernst Tanner, Union sporting director, in a team statement. “Not only will we look to continue both signing Union Academy products for the first team and Bethlehem Steel FC, as well as attracting young talent from abroad, we believe that this sum of money will help us complete crucial signings ahead of the upcoming campaign.”
For Cincinnati, the deal sees them double their number of draft picks to 10, including three in Round 1. In addition to their natural No. 1 selection, they acquired the No. 16 overall selection from LAFC earlier on Wednesday, and have now acquired Philadelphia's natural first-round pick as well. In exchange, they dealt away nearly all of the $175,000 in GAM they received from LAFC earlier in the day in addition to the draft pick.
