D.C. United broke its own transfer-fee record this year to sign Romanian international striker Louis Munteanu, on top of sending Philadelphia up to $4.6 million for forward Tai Baribo. It’s the kind of spending a front office points to when it wants to say it’s serious. What that spending hasn’t done is move the team out of eleventh place in the Eastern Conference, chasing a playoff spot it hasn’t reached since 2019.
Meanwhile the rookie D.C. United drafted eighth overall, University of Washington midfielder Richie Aman, signed the contract every draftee signs: two guaranteed years, then three more years of options that belong to the club, not to him. That’s the actual structure of labor in this sport — a handful of transfer fees big enough to make headlines, and a supply of young players locked into deals that let the team decide, year by year, whether his labor is still worth paying for. Both moves happened the same off-season, under the same ownership. Only one of them was a gamble the player got to make himself.