Landon Donovan has agreed to a four-year contract extension with the Los Angeles Galaxy, the club announced today.
Donovan will, however, move to Everton in the English Premier League on a loan beginning in January, the Los Angeles Times reports. The agreement allows Donovan freedom on off-season loans, but it could effectively close the door on a permanent move to Europe.
Donovan’s new contract calls for a big raise, but the full terms haven’t been released, so it’s unclear whether it will have a buyout clause that could free Donovan to move overseas at some point.
We may weigh in a bit more on this later, as more information becomes available.
So what do you think? Good choice? Or will this leave Donovan’s club career forever incomplete? Weigh in with comments below.
The meaningfulness of all this will lie in the thus far undisclosed full terms of the contract. As you mention, the big question is does the contract has a buyout clause should Donovan, against all past experience, actually succeed at some point in Europe. The whole off-season loan thing is strange and I wonder if it will be perhaps the most lasting (and most damaging) legacy of Beckham’s time in the MLS.
I actually find the recent news that MLS has met with Stuart Holden to offer him something like ten times what he is currently being paid at the Dynamo more interesting. Since that is currently only in the neighborhood of an insultingly low $34,000, even if Holden is offered something in the $300,000 to $400,000 range he is still being underpaid by any international standard for a player of his quality. With stories of interest from SPL clubs Aberdeen and Rangers, and now Blackburn in the BPL, Holden will have some big decisions to make in the next week or two with the opening of the January transfer window in Europe. Holden is relatively unknown out of the States and he carries none of the baggage that makes it so easy for European nay-sayers to dismiss US soccer. His impact could therefore be greater for US soccer, should he prove his potential.