Dejan Joveljic: The Sweet Punishment of the Past
Why did the Galaxy trade Joveljic? Did they have to?
It’s been a long weekend. After spending the weekend in Houston with many other analytical folks at the American Soccer Insights Summit, I was crushed by the news of my sweet Dallas Mavericks trading Luka Doncic for… yeah let’s not talk about it.
Instead, let’s talk about another Balkan player who was traded in another league.
Dejan Joveljic was traded to Sporting Kansas City from the LA Galaxy for $4m in cash, making this the first-ever cash-for-player trade in league history. To many, this was surprising; the Galaxy has already made a flurry of moves, including trading Gaston Brugman, Jalen Neal, and Mark Delgado. This was expected; MLS Cup bonuses hit the cap, players get bigger deals, and there’s basically a cap crunch.
What wasn’t expected, was Joveljic’s departure. In fact, it seemed like the moves were being made to allow him to stay. Trading Delgado’s and Brugman’s salaries and acquiring GAM thanks to the Jalen Neal trade didn’t end up creating enough cap space. A lot of the stuff I’ve been reading is talking about how the Galaxy are being punished for success in MLS.
Is that really the reason why the Galaxy couldn’t keep him?
As many know, I and
love to talk roster rules between each other. One day, we were shooting ideas when the initial rumors involving Joveljic and Tigres popped up. As mentioned above, we were confused. The Galaxy cleared all this room and still couldn’t keep him?Marc then posed this question that forced me to go deeper.
“Could Joveljic be a DP that was masked under the U22 label?”
Let’s take a step back. Joveljic was signed to a U22 deal in 2021. His reported transfer fee was $4m and he was signed to a 4.5 year deal. U22 players hit the cap at $200,000 on their initial contract until the year that they turn 26 (like getting kicked off your parent’s health insurance). Here’s a table to break this down (using our assumptions for public amortization)
These are estimates based on the $4m fee that we’ve seen. As you can see, Joveljic’s budget charge was at that value until the 2025 season, when he is turning 26. It’s a sizeable budget charge jump and would require the Galaxy to clear more space to fit him into the roster as a TAM player. Since he is not a U22 anymore, Joveljic reverts to a normal roster player. All in all, the Galaxy could’ve made this work and chose not to… right?
This is based on a fee we’ve seen publically. According to the 2024 MLS Rules and Roster Rules, “A player's Salary Budget Charge, and therefore Designated Player status, is generally determined by averaging all guaranteed amounts payable over the guaranteed term.” Keep in mind that for TAM players in 2025, the player’s average number above in this instance must be below $1,743,750. If they’re above that number, a player cannot be bought down.
If we work backward on that equation, we can figure out a rough equation for the total that number needs to be below.
Joveljic’s guaranteed term is 4.5 years. Therefore, the ceiling of that number needs to be below $7.8m. Joveljic’s reported fee was $4m. His total salary across the five years (assuming the trend of his salary hitting the max budget charge) is $3.3m. Therefore, Joveljic’s public number comes in below that $7.8m at $7.3m.
However, if that fee is off by just ~$500-$600k, then Joveljic is a full DP and cannot be bought down. That is entirely possible as we are never 100% sure what the real transfer amounts are. In that case, Joveljic couldn’t have been kept unless the Galaxy freed up a DP spot.
Whatever you think Joveljic’s number is, it was basically impossible for the Galaxy to keep him based on his current contract. However, if the Galaxy had structured it in a way to where he had an option year in 2025, the calculus for Joveljic would be different. Remember, our equation is all guaranteed amounts; an option is not included in that. An example is Obinna Nwobodo of FC Cincinnati. Before this upcoming season, Nwobodo could not be bought down because his transfer fee was included in the amortization equation. Now in his option year, that isn’t included, and would just be whatever his salary is. If that is below the threshold, he is TAM eligible.
If the Galaxy had made Joveljic’s contract a 3.5+1 or whatever structure to have the option year line up in 2025, his fee wouldn’t be included. It would just be his salary, which then may be less of a budget charge than the amortized amount.
The final piece of this is the amount of GAM the Galaxy can recoup. If Joveljic is a non-buy-down-able DP, the Galaxy cannot recoup any GAM for him. If he is a TAM level DP, they would have to recoup the total costs. Even if that amount if $4m as reported, they would not be able to get any amount of GAM unless MLS has different rules for their cash for players deal (which is entirely possible). They did not recoup the costs, and therefore should not get any GAM.
This is just a matter of a lot of things happening at once with the Galaxy. Sure, the MLS Cup bonuses hit. Even without them, the club’s cap situation is really, really tight. We don’t know if Marco Reus will be on a bigger number. We don’t know what Maya Yoshida’s new deal is. Gabriel Pec is not a young DP anymore and instead is a full DP cap hit.
However, the structure of Joveljic’s initial deal, which was before Will Kuntz’s arrival, played a role. Imagine a world where Joveljic’s cap hit was only $900,000; could the Galaxy figure out a way to keep him and then sell him or sign him to a new deal at a later time?
Now, the Galaxy are tasked with the challenge of finding a forward to fill his place. With Pec and Joseph Paintsil, chances will be there. Can they find someone to capitalize on them?