KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Sporting Kansas City have made attempts to bring in Argentine midfielder Sebastian Blanco, manager and technical director Peter Vermes said hours before the end of the summer transfer window.
They don't expect to land him, though.
“We've been in conversations with that player – or I should say, trying to see if we could work out a deal around that player,” Vermes told reporters after Wednesday's training session. “I just don't feel like it's going to get to where we want it to be.”
If Sporting are unable to get Blanco away from Argentine side San Lorenzo, Vermes doesn't see any more players coming in this summer.
“We're trying,” he said. “I'd say right now, it's probably not looking great. We've done a lot of work. It's just that the market is incredibly expensive at the moment. We're not going to over-overpay for players. We're just not going to do it.
“You guys have seen how we've built our rosters over the years, and I'm not going to subject that to, all of a sudden, someone getting too greedy.”
Vermes didn't lay the blame for that on players. Rather, he pointed the finger at the market, which is seeing clubs pay players beyond their actual value.
“Transfer fees are a part of the market in soccer,” he said. “I don't attribute that to a player's salary. Players don't get that money. That's what you pay to get that player. But a lot of times, that's what the difficulty is.
“We're trying to manage that situation, but as an organization we're not going to go out and willy-nilly spend money, just because people are saying that's what they want or clubs are demanding that for a player when we know – it's not that you're paying a premium. It's over the top.”
Under Vermes, Sporting have taken the approach of looking for good players in less-than-ideal situations – players who have helped them win the 2013 MLS Cup, two US Open Cup titles, and reach the postseason five years running. That won't change, he said.
“We'll wait it out. We'll find somebody else,” Vermes said. “We'll work within the confines of that. That doesn't mean we don't want to win. It doesn't mean any of those things. We just have to be responsible about what we do and the decisions that we make.”
MLS, which has a salary cap with exemptions for Designated Players and Homegrown players, does not limit how much a club can pay to land a DP.
“I think there's been a lot of overpaying in our league,” Vermes said. “Once a threshold is set, and the same kind of people are involved, it's hard for them. Why would they go lower? That's one of the difficulties. The threshold in our league has been set high in a lot of situations on players.
“I'm not the expert on this, but I would tell you my opinion: Sometimes it's over-inflation.”
Sporting have not been idle this summer, but have made only one move outside MLS – the acquisition of left back Éver Alvarado from Honduran side CD Olimpia. They also brought in midfielder Emmanuel Appiahon a free transfer and traded left back Amadou Dia to Montreal in exchange for forward Cameron Porter.
Ghanaian midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong, who began his career with Arsenal and was most recently with Russian side Ufa, trialed with Sporting last week but will not be coming to Kansas City.
“That's done,” Vermes said. “It's not going to happen.”
