Real Salt Lake striker Yura Movsisyan has signed a pre-contract with Danish club Randers, meaning he will leave MLS after the current season to join Randers on January 1, 2010. Movsisyan is in the final year of his MLS contract and is allowed to sign with a new club six months before his current contract expires.
A first-round pick in 2006 by Kansas City, Movsisyan has chosen to play out the final year of his initial four-year MLS contract, which means he will be able to leave Real Salt Lake on a free transfer. Patrick McCabe, Movsisyan's agent, confirmed the deal to SBI and revealed that Randers had approached RSL about a transfer fee to acquire Movsisyan during the summer but were turned down.
Movsisyan helped carry RSL to the MLS playoffs last season, but is enduring his ups and downs this season, managing four goals and two assists for Real Salt Lake. He has managed 16 goals and three assists over the course of four seasons.
Movsisyan's departure comes after a winter that saw Real Salt Lake lock up several other key players to new contracts, including Javier Morales, Jamison Olave and Chris Wingert. Movsisyan is set to make $70,582.50 this season with Real Salt Lake.
What do you think of Movsisyan departing MLS? Disappointed? Surprised? Think he's making a mistake or do you see him thriving in Europe?
Share your thoughts below.
RSL needs to agree to a fee in order to get something out of this. If they lose Yura for free, it won’t help us at all.
good for him, i guess, too bad for Salt Lake why didn’t RSL want to reacquire him .. and why didn’t they re sign him to begin with?
it would be great if the top players from the mls routinely went on 6 month loans to anywhere in europe from january to june. they would come back to the MLS with an elevated game ready for the second half of the season.
promising player…inconsistent but promising…hope his career takes off in europe
The dude sucks, let him leave.
Deseret News is reporting MLS still trying to negotiate a transfer fee so that Yura can leave now and MLS can get something for him.
The story says he will be back at practice Wednesday if a deal isn’t reached before then.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705315203/Real-Salt-Lake-Movsisyan-signs-deal-to-play-in-Denmark.html
The Danish league may not have better talent, but they pay better than MLS. Then again, virtually any respectable sports league in existance anywhere in the world pays better than MLS.
I think the debate about what league is much more complicated… first of all there’s the question – better for who?
In this case, Movsisyan is sure to get more money in Denmark than Utah. That’s just one part of the material benefit – maybe the team provides him with housing, a car, etc. A German friend who played Regionnaliga level there says he had such a deal. The material benefits are something MLS can work on by raising salaries, but it ain’t gonna happen overnight.
The intangible benefits of playing in a place like Denmark are not as equally matched. Playing where most people care about the score of the game and recognize you on the street for your abilities to do something you love – how can MLS change that?
And then there’s the potential for exposure in Europe, meeting other players and coaches who might recommend you to other teams before and after your playing career is over, and so forth.
And what about living in a new place? Thierry Henry keeps talking about the adventure of living in the US… so did Beckham. MLS players are looking for the same thing. There’s nothing MLS can do about many of these things. Let’s hope with the new union negotiations after this season the cap goes up and player salaries rise, but I think we’re going to keep seeing talented players move to Scandinavia, the SPL, etc.
Hincha,
Back in ’07 Armenia radically altered its citizenship laws to allow for ethnic Armenians like Movsisyan to obtain dual citizenship (thus the ability to play for the their national team). Armenia has just started to issue passports under this new law and it seems that if Movsisyan really wanted to he could obtain Armenian citizenship through this channel.
I’d also point out that Movsisyan (and his parents) was not born in Azerbaijan, but technically in the Soviet Union (of which the Azerbaijani SSR was a member).
All that said, really not sure what some of you have seen from him to justify that the US rush to cap him (assuming he is anywhere near obtaining a green card)…
Good luck Yura. Looks like RSL should’ve taken the fee, let him go this summer and extended Escalada’s contract.
FINALLY! I hate to see him go for nothing when people still seem to rate him so highly, but I can’t take another year of him hitting open shots into the 35th row. My personal favorite this year was his shot that missed so badly it went over the SIDEline. He puts in a ton of effort, but his touch is poor, shooting is awful, and his field awareness is non-existent. Plus, he has one move that he uses constantly and I’ve noticed good defenders are now starting to key in on it. I’ll miss him, but just for the magic goals he scored late last season to get us in the playoffs (people forget he was awful for 2/3 of last year too). Now maybe Robbie can get off the bench for an extended stretch…
Wow. There aren’t a lot of leagues that would be a step down from MLS but the Danish league surely must be one of them. For the people on here who think the Danish League is BETTER get a clue. Just because it is in Europe does not make it better. And I am no fan of the MLS in terms of it being “high quality” football but puh-lease … it’s Denmark.
I’m glad this happened. Now maybe RSL can get a better forward! I have no idea why Randers would want him, but then again we are talking about Randers! I don’t know what player some of the posters here have been watching, but everything I’ve seen of this guy is awful. He seems to need about ten fantastic opportunities per goal. Perhaps his off the ball and secondary play are good, but just as a goal scorer? P-U!
Congratulations Yura! It’s great to see all sorts of Yanks sprinkling through the Danish league.
Does he head to Vietnam next?
Posted by: Ted | July 06, 2009 at 05:55 PM
Nice one Ted, I was thinking the same thing.
RSL just let Escalada go, so for strikers, it is just Findley and Espindola. And it is pretty interesting that in RSL’s current 5 game unbeaten streak, Yura has had a hand scoring in every game (while Saturday was an own goal, the San Jose player kicked it off Yura’s foot into the goal).
He will be missed here in RSL (by myself at least).
Hincha Tim..thats for clearing up his situation..you are one smart man
I don’t care where he plays but the dude needs to lay off the cologne. I could smell him from another table when we were at the same restaurant. In fact, another guy that was with me asked who the Eurotrash was.
Danish league is definitely better than MLS, but not by too much.
But the salaries are much higher.
———
Our top-end is like their average club, basically. They have that Euro tradition of a a couple of clubs able to outspend and dominate, and any MLS sides would be in for a pretty torrid time there; MLS is more like SPL level.
Danish league is definitely a step up from MLS. MLS is more on par with Sweden and Norway which are both summer leagues that no one cares about. Sound familiar?
First of all, he’s Azerbaijani by nationality, he’s Armenian by ethnicity, so he would play for Azerbaijan not Armenia, unless one of his parents were Armenian citizens.
Does he head to Vietnam next?
Call him up for our next match against Turkey.
Danish league is definitely better than MLS, but not by too much.
But the salaries are much higher.
UEFA national team rankings have Armenia sitting at 44th…just above Liechtenstein and below Moldova. The potential to play for the US would be much more inviting.
The danish league is supposed to be the best of those leagues up there (i.e. norway, sweden, denmark), but it still seems like an odd move. Probably jumped the gun a little bit, but I guess he wants to play in the best league possible, and this is the stepping stone to get there.
MLS is becoming a gateway for second-tier Europe. Another sign that the talent in the league is rising. Unfortunately, with all of these players leaving, and new clubs forming, I think the level of talent across the board will become worse.
Hopefully college kids in the future will make an impact similar to 2009’s class.
I’d like to see him capped by the US, but I imagine Armenia is going to jump all over him now. Good for him though, he seems like a good guy.
I think its players like Movsisyan that make any league look exciting. You like that individualistic effort one puts out against an opposing team. Movsisyan was the type of player that made defenders not want to be in a one on one situation. MLS needs more players like him.
How did we lose him to the Danish league? Is it really that much better tahn MLS?
I dont believe that Yura has an Armenian passport. He was born in Azerbaijan, iirc, and is, as far as I understand, a citizen of only that country.
He is ethnicly Armenian.
I dont know if he has a green card yet, and have no idea what a move to play professionally in a foreign country would do to that process.
Brian, you are infact NOT underestimating the Danish League. i would hate to call them inferior but it is no clear “step-up” in the footballing world
Much bigger TV deal in Denmark is one reason I would guess. Plus if the team is in Europe (Europa League or CL) they get a lot of cash.
fair enough. he;s good some good potential. He’s fast, and has good skills. Was on a wretched run until recently, but he lit it up last year.
Lucky RSL has Espindola, Escalada and FIndley so they’re not going to be too bad (assumign Escalada hangs around, he’s not playing much but had a good reputation coming in)
I am deeply disturbed that MLS continues to lose decent players to inferior leagues. How can a team whose stadium holds only 12,000 people outbuy RSL, who averages better attendance than Randers’ all-time best. Very sad.
This is great for Yura, but bad for MLS and even worse for RSL. MLS needs to get salaries up to compete with the mid-level leagues in Europe. We don’t need to compete with the salaries of La Liga, Serie A, or the EPL, but we need to stop losing developing talent to a league that is no better than the MLS, (unless I have vastly underestimated the Danish League).
As the “super sub” he was pretty decent.
He might not realize it now, but he is going to miss that extra $.50 on his salary.
Good for Yura. Perhaps RSL will think DP with that open spot come the off-season???
Ulrich: Only if the transfer money is greater than the money that the player could help acquire if that player plays the rest of the season – in this case, if Yura manages to get RSL to the playoffs/whatnot, then perhaps that will be better than what Randers offered. I can’t imagine they were going to offer a great deal of money for just a few months either.
Hey Ives,
I don’t know anything about the Danish league. Or a lot of other leagues aside from EPL, La Liga, and Bundesliga. I just always assume because MLS is really still in its infancy, that any European first division is a step up. Is that true?
Can you list the top 25 first division leagues in the world?
Would MLS be on it?
Thanks.
CAP HIM!!!
This is a solid move for the big center forward. I wish him well.
One day MLS will understand that transfering a player for some money is better than losing the player for nothing.
Just when I was learning to spell his name…
He’s not a citizen.
Good for Yura. Yes, he can be a bit up and down, but he certainly can create chances on his own, a quality that is lacking in most forwards in the league. Best of luck to him.
Cap Movsisyan? For the USA? Why? So we can have another mediocre forward? It’s not like he’s lighting up MLS.
^^ *Yura
Good for Yuri.
He’s a American citizen right? If he is I’m all for development.
Any news of an Armenia call-up for the guy? He’s got to be better than some of the dudes in that squad.
Cap him before Armenia does!!
Sorry, someone was gonna say it eventually