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Gareth Bale is the latest European bigshot to have agreed to a move to Major League Soccer (MLS) and his signing made David Beckham money. The Welshman signed a 12-month deal with Los Angeles FC after his contract with Real Madrid expired.
Interestingly though, fellow MLS franchise Inter Miami have made a decent profit as a result of Bale's transfer. MARCA reported that the David Beckham-owned club earned $75,000 courtesy of a rule implemented by the American league that regulates the signing of players that arrive from foreign leagues. This rule is called the Discovery List.
The rule constrains teams from breaking their salary cap while still allowing them to sign their desired targets. As for Bale's transfer, LAFC went over their salary limit, called the Target Allocated Money (TAM), to reduce the salary cap impact of various players. This facilitated the signing of the former Real Madrid forward.
But how exactly does David Beckham's Inter Miami benefit from all this? The Discovery List guidelines have more to it. Players in foreign leagues who are not under any contract in MLS or subject to any other allocation mechanism in the US league, but are being followed by a certain MLS franchise as future signings, fall on this list.
When a club wishes to bring in a foreign player to the US league as a potential signing, they assign him to this list. As a result, other clubs cannot challenge their advances for the player. A franchise can add as many as seven players under this clause. David Beckham's club had listed Bale on their Discovery List and hence had the first right to sign the player.
In order to acquire these rights to sign the 32-year old, LAFC had to fork out $75,000. Earlier this month, the MLS outfit also announced the signing of Georgio Chiellini on a similar deal. The Discovery List clause can be found across all four of America's major sports leagues, namely the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL.
LAFC head coach expecting Bale to make a huge impact at the club
Since the former Real Madrid forward is joining the MLS club as a free agent, he's been allocated an extremely low salary compared to what he was earning at the Santiago Bernabeu. MARCA reported that the Welsh wizard will earn just €1.6 million for the 2022 season.
This figure could've jumped to $3.5 million if Bale was not signed using the Targeted Allocation Money. However, that would still have been meagre compared to his Los Blancos package of $20.3 million per season. Nonetheless, David Beckham couldn't care less about how much LAFC pay the 32-year old as he has already made his $75,000 from the deal.
LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo spoke about the Welshman's signing, via GOAL:
"There are simply not many players in the world who can have an impact on a match like Gareth Bale. His knowledge of the game and experience in playing in big games will be invaluable for our club.”
