In a rather interesting turn of events, Vancouver Whitecaps Residency graduate and potential Homegrown signing, Kyle Porter appears to be taking his talents to La Belle Provence. Reports from Bruce Constantineau (The Sun) and Marc Weber (The Province) both have Porter headed to Montreal to join their training camp this week, which will then head to Arizona on Sunday.
It doesn't look like the Impact and Whitecaps will be sharing a hotel while in Arizona - they're both staying at the Casa Grande, but not during the same time frame. How weird would that be though? I'm thinking Forgetting Sarah Marshall hi jinx ... A of comedy of errors ensues.
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Either way, the decision is going to be an interesting one anyway you shake it.
If Porter signs with the Impact for 2011, he can earn more then he would on a base level salary with the 'Caps. The NASL doesn't have the same salary restrictions in place as MLS — which limits Porter's potential earnings to $42 000. Even if he were to sign with Montreal for this year, Vancouver would still retain his MLS rights as he is a residency program product.
If I were running Vancouver (...THE WHITECAPS WOULD FINISH IN LAST PLACE) I would let Porter go. If you still retain his rights for the next season, why not? It would basically be as good as a loan deal, Porter gets a little more in game experience and suites up against real men, rather then whatever he would be facing in the Reserve League.
Then again; if Teitur felt that Porter was going to be an integral part of this year's team or the future, they probably would have signed him already."We were interested in him but we have a lot of players available to us in those [development] spots and we just needed to get a longer look at him," he said. "So we're just letting the process run its course at this point."Bob Lenarduzzi told Bruce Constantineau of the Vancouver Sun