Gilberto, of course, was made expendable last winter when the Reds signed Jozy Altidore and Seba Giovinco to DP contracts, thus putting the club over the three per team maximum allowed.
A solution was found that saw the Brazilian loaned to Brazilian side Vasco da Gama. Although never stated publicly, the idea was to let him play out the year in Brazil and then, hopefully, sell him to Vasco for a small amount of profit.
Things started well for Gilberto. In the Campeonato Carioca – the Rio regional league that plays in the winter months – Gilberto scored nine times as Vasco captured the championship. However, when the quality stepped up in May in the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, the goals dried up. Gilberto has not scored in the top flight.
That three month drought lead to Vasco terminating the loan agreement with TFC.
Suddenly the Reds were in a bit of a pickle. With the loan unexpectedly ending early, they found themselves in violation of league roster rules. They had to get back in compliance quickly.
This left them with four choices. They could sell or trade Gilberto, they could restructure his contract, they could release him, or they could trade another of the DPs to make room for him.
The latter was a non-starter, so really they had three choices and no time to make them.
The problem with selling is that he is an out of form striker and no one was beating down the door to buy him. The best chance at selling him went out the window when he stopped scoring.
As far as trading him goes, every MLS team knew that TFC was in violation of the roster rules. They had no leverage.
Restructuring would require the player to be on board. That is if they were even interested in keeping him around. As far as the new, barely understood, Targeted Allocation Rule goes, it doesn’t appear that Gilberto’s contract would be able to be bought down by the money. Only $500,000 can be used (over five years), so even if TFC maxed that money out Gilberto’s cap hit would still be $700,000. That’s still a DP level and that still puts TFC in violation of the roster rules.
So, we’re down to one option. Release him, which they were in the process of doing when Chicago grabbed him up.
Would TFC had preferred it if another MLS team didn’t get him for nothing? Probably. Did they have a lot of options in the matter? No.
As stated at the top, fans can be forgiven for being confused. However, nothing was likely as good a deal as TFC was going to get for Gilberto.