There is a lot of discussion at the moment about how much money the Vancouver Whitecaps make. One thing I have seen come up a few times in various comment sections is that they are making money from selling players. This piqued my interest, so I decided to take a look at if the Whitecaps have been profitable player traders (spoiler alert: mostly not) and how their results have changed over the years.

Not an Exact Science:

For the purposes of this article, I am treating the sale of Alphonso Davies to Bayern Munich as ‘year zero.’ We are only going to be looking at transfers where actual hard currency traded hands, so GAM isn’t being considered. I am going to be relying on the fees reported by Transfermarkt (which means this is all in Euros).

Now, I have to say up front that this methodology has some limitations. For one thing, Transfermarkt doesn’t always have data on how much money a transfer was. In these instances, I have taken the player market value at the time, because it’s the best I have. But we know that Transfermarkt values, while a decent proxy for how much it would cost to sign a player, are not always accurate. Secondly, lots of transfers have add-ons, escalators, and sell on percentages. I don’t really have reliable information on those. In the tables below, I have marked players with an asterisk when there is some uncertainty about fees paid for them.

In instances where a player initially joined on loan but later had their move made permanent, I have included their totals in the season they initially joined the club. I know this is not how it would work from a strict accounting perspective, but I found it easier to keep track this way. In instances where a player who joined the club before ‘year zero’ was sold, I have included them in the table for the year they were sold.

Let’s get started on breaking this down year by year.

2019:

You know, considering how bad the team was that year, this is a lot less of a disaster than I was expecting. Yes, they lost almost 3 million dollars but, a lot of this was due to events beyond their control. They had to let Ali Adnan walk after he was refused a visa to play in the United States (I’m sure it had nothing to do with his involvement in Iraqi protests). They also missed out on a sell-on fee for In-Beom Hwang because foreign players were allowed to walk away from their contract with Russian clubs after the invasion of Ukraine. Erik Godoy and Jasser Khmiri suffered from persistent injury trouble, but I don’t think they were necessarily bad investments at the time. 400k for 32-year-old Jon Erice is a bit of a stinker, as was 400k for Lucas Venuto.

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
In-Beom Hwang	1.56	2.5	0.94
Jasser Khmiri	0.4	0	-0.4
Jon Erice	0.4	0	-0.4
Lucas Venuto	0.4	0	-0.4
Derek Cornelius	0	0.458	0.458
Erik Godoy	1.35	0	-1.35
Ali Adnan	1.82	0	-1.82
Theo Bair	0	0.123	0.123
Total	5.93	3.081	-2.849

2020:

Now this is genuinely pretty disastrous from an ROI perspective. There were reports that MLS subsidised part of the fee for Lucas Cavallini, but even still, the Whitecaps lost a ton of money on this season. This was a bit of an awkward period in terms of ‘Caps recruitment. Axel Schsuter had joined but the recruitment department was not yet built out. At the same time, there was still a lot of Davies Money™ sloshing around and pressure to spend it. I think lessons of the Cavallini transfer are pretty well established at this point. It’s a bad idea to drop a stack of cash on a 27-year-old striker if your team is multiple seasons away from being competitive. But they also seemed very willing to pay through the nose for players from leagues that required a significant jump to MLS. Buying smartly from those leagues can be part of a good frugal transfer strategy but, paying 2 million for Janio Bikel (who was already 24) is not it!

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
Lucas Cavallini	4.55	0	-4.55
Janio Bikel	2	0	-2
Leonard Owusu	1	0	-1
David Milinkovic	0.1	0	-0.1
Chitru Odunze	0	0.1	0.1
Anthony Blondell	1.09	1	-0.09
Cristian Techera*	0.8	0.26	-0.54
Ranko Vesleinovic	0.59	N/A	N/A
Total	10.23	1.36	-8.87

2021:

This is the first season where the Whitecaps had a proper scouting set-up and, unsurprisingly, it’s the first one with some profit! Now, the size of this profit is a bit unclear. I have a hard time believing Caio Alexandre was sold for 5 million, as I recall reports at the time indicated the Whitecaps basically broke even. But he was then sold again, for 4.5 million, with the Whitecaps keeping an unspecified percentage of that transfer. Pedro Vite’s transfer also includes 1.3 million in bonuses and 20% of any future sales.

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
Caio Alexandre*	3.6	5	1.4
Deiber Caicedo	2.05	0.975	-1.075
Pedro Vite*	2.1	3.8	1.7
Ryan Gauld	0.35	N/A	N/A
Total	8.1	9.775	2.025

2022:

Figuring out how to account for this season from a profit/loss perspective is a bit tricky since the only cash transfer was for a player still on the team. If you were to sell Andres Cubas right now, you would probably make a small profit.

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
Andres Cubas	2.73	N/A	N/A
Simon Becher	0	0.4	0.4
Simon Colyn*	0	0.4	0.4
Daminao Pecile*	0	0.1	0.1
Total*	2.73	0.9	-1.83

2023:

Despite two relatively expensive signings that are still on the team, this season is still in the black! Selling players that you got for free will do that!

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
Sergio Cordova	2.1	2.35	0.25
Yohei Takaoka*	1	N/A	N/A
Ali Ahmed	0	2	2
Sam Adekugbe	1	N/A	N/A
Total	4.1	4.35	0.25

2024:

As we move closer to the present day, there will have been less time for these transfers to turn a profit. Although 2024 is technically in the red at the moment, it’s pretty easy to see it eventually being profitable. I feel certain you could get more than that for Ocampo now, and this will only be further solidified if he has another strong season. I had to chuckle that Stuart Armstrong and Bjorn Inge Utvik were technically profitable ventures.

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
Giuseppe Bovalina	0.135	N/A	N/A
Bjorn Inge Utvik	0	0.25	0.25
Edier Ocampo	1.6	N/A	N/A
Stuart Armstrong	0	0.58	0.58
Total	1.735	0.83	-0.905

2025:

I did want to briefly touch on the 2025 season because it presents an interesting conundrum on how to quantify profit with the MLS rules. Jayden Nelson was bought for hard currency and then traded for GAM and a draft pick. If the player selected with that pick (Zach Ramsey) eventually becomes a sellable asset, and the players you are able to bring in with that extra GAM (Cheikh Salaby for the time being) are also able to flipped, then the overall series of moves could be quite profitable despite not selling Nelson for hard currency.

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
Jayden Nelson	0.35	N/A	N/A
Emmanuel Sabbi	1	N/A	N/A
Kenji Cabrera	1	N/A	N/A
Joedrick Pupe	1	N/A	N/A
Sebastian Schonlau	0.15	N/A	N/A
Total	3.5	N/A	N/A

2026:

Player Name	Joined for ($M)	Sold for ($M)	Overall Profit/Loss ($M)
Bruno Caicedo	1.5	N/A	N/A
Cheikh Sabaly	1	N/A	N/A
Total	2.5	N/A	N/A

Where We Stand:

There are a few ways to look at all of this. On the one hand, the Whitecaps transfer balance sheet over this period, plus the buys they have made in the lead up to 2026, is in the neighbourhood of negative nineteen million dollars. That’s not ideal. However, almost 60% of that is due to 2019 and 2020, before they had built out a proper scouting apparatus. Investing in scouts and data analysts has proved extremely beneficial to the club both in terms of on-field performance and not flushing millions down the toilet. A little under 50% can be accounted for by players who are currently on the team, many of whom could be sold profitably should the club desire to do so.

To expand on that last point a bit, here are all the players who were bought for hard currency that are currently on the roster compared to their current Transfermarkt value:

Player	Joined For ($M)	Current MV ($M)	Unrealized Gain/Loss ($M)
Andres Cubas	2.73	4	1.27
Yohei Takaoka	1	3.5	2.5
Sam Adekugbe	1	0.8	-0.2
Giuseppe Bovalina	0.135	0.2	0.065
Ranko Veselinovic	0.59	3	2.41
Edier Ocampo	1.6	3	1.4
Emannuel Sabbi	1	2.5	1.5
Kenji Cabrera	1	1.6	0.6
Total	10.205	20.2	9.995

Now, I wouldn’t take all of these numbers 100% seriously. I would love to meet the sporting director willing to give you 800k for Sam Adekugbe, given his recent injury history. But this also doesn’t include players who were signed without hard currency but almost certainly could be sold for it.

So, are the Whitecaps making money from player trading? No! But if they more or less keep doing what they’re doing, that should eventually change.