Alright stay with me, here.

The Whitecaps have received allocation money from the Philadelphia Union, in exchange for their right for refusal for Canadian defender Steven Vitoria, who has joined the Union on a one year loan.

I'll admit, sometimes I can get very confused by the dealings of MLS, and I understand it must be the same for many of you. So, here's a terrific explanation from Jonathan Tannewald of Philly.com, in which he lays out what happened.

The meat of the explanation is as follows:

Vancouver had Vítoria on its Discovery list in 2014, which is a set of players outside MLS that each club in the league can claim the first right to neogtiate with if said players want to enter the league. At some point in 2014, the Whitecaps tried to sign Vítoria, and it got to the point where they made what MLS headquarters considered to be a "bona fide" offer. Vítoria refused it, as he didn't want to play for the team. But Vancouver kept his MLS rights, simply because of having made that offer. Yes, really.

Alright, still on board? So, basically the right of refusal option for clubs that make bona fide offers to discovery players does not expire, which was good news for the Whitecaps.

Because of this, the Union had to send allocation money (an undisclosed amount, as ever) to Vancouver in order to gain the ability to sign Vítoria. MLS is notoriously secretive about the sums of allocation money that move in trades, and I haven't been able to confirm how much the Union gave up. I do know, however, that the minimum requirement for allocation money in a trade which includes it is $50,000.

So basically, the Vancouver Whitecaps picked up some money for a player that was never going to put on their kit. I'd call that a good day at the office.