Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber stepped onto a stage at the Westin hotel in downtown Atlanta on the afternoon before the 2018 MLS Cup last December and made a surprise announcement to the room full of journalists.

“We need to become more of a selling league,” Garber declared.

The statement signaled an important shift in philosophy for Major League Soccer. MLS has shied away from being labeled a “selling league” in the past, but that has changed over the last year as the league has started to develop into a bigger player within the world soccer market. At the same time that the level of talent coming into MLS has improved, clubs across the league have also started to sell top talent and young prospects to teams overseas for significant transfer fees, a strong indication that MLS is gaining more respect on the international stage.

The Vancouver Whitecaps reached a deal to send teenage phenom Alphonso Davies to Bayern Munich for a then-record transfer fee of up to $22 million last July. That league record was smashed in January when Atlanta United sold Miguel Almiron to Newcastle for a reported $27 million. The New York Red Bulls also dealt defensive midfielder Tyler Adams to German club RB Leipzig last December, while Columbus goalkeeper Zack Steffen will head to Manchester City in July on a transfer fee of up to $10 million. Toronto FC transferred star forward Sebastian Giovinco to Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal FC in January as well.

“It’s transformational times for MLS,” said Timbers owner Merritt Paulson on Timbers in 30 last week. “I would be careful about characterizing the changes as MLS moving to being a selling league because obviously we’re bringing a lot of talent in as well, but we’re certainly a much more active participant in the global market. It’s huge. It’s massive. It’s something, frankly, from a Timbers-standpoint, we have to take advantage of.”

While the Timbers have invested more and more money into acquiring top talent from overseas in recent years and have said that they would be willing to set a club-record in spending to sign a designated player this season, Portland has yet to move any players abroad for notable transfer fees. But that’s not to say that the Timbers wouldn’t make a deal, if the right offer presented itself.

Portland has been offered substantial transfer fees for every single one of its top stars over the last several years. This offseason, the Timbers fielded a multi-million-dollar offer for Sebastian Blanco from a club in the Middle East, but immediately turned it down. As the Timbers continue to strive for success within MLS, Timbers President of Soccer and General Manager Gavin Wilkinson said that there are certain players -- including Blanco, Diego Valeri and Diego Chara -- that the club needs to keep within the organization to build its roster around.

“I think we will sell players when it makes sense,” Wilkinson said. “Over the years, while they may not be earth-shattering, we sold Jose Valencia, George Fochive, and we’ve moved other players when it has made sense for the club. We’ve loaned players out with the option to buy. For us, if you have a player that’s proven and a player that’s integrated into the club and the system, it removes all risk. You start to build your roster around those key players. Those players over the years have been Chara, Valeri, Blanco, Liam Ridgewell. For us, if we’re going to sell a player, it has to be strategic.”

Over the last several years, the Timbers have made a concerted effort to bring younger players to the club and the T2 program, hoping that those players could develop within the organization over time. The Timbers currently have eight players on their roster age 23 or younger in Jeremy Ebobisse, Cristhian Paredes, Marco Farfan, Tomas Conechny, Marvin Loria, Eryk Williamson, Bill Tuiloma and Foster Langsdorf. While Paredes and Conechny are in Portland on loan, the Timbers have the option to purchase their contacts.

Ebobisse is currently the only player 23 or younger that is a starter for the Timbers, but some of the club’s other young players have shown promise at the first team level as well. While some could develop into key contributors for the Timbers over time, others could become valuable assets on the transfer market, if they continue their development. If the Timbers were to sell a top prospect to a club abroad, they could reinvest the money that they acquire from the transfer fee back into building their roster. Since MLS is a single-entity league, teams generally keep 75 percent of any transfer fee when they move a player abroad, while the league takes a 25-percent cut. MLS clubs keep the full transfer fee when they sell a homegrown player. For designated players, clubs recoup their discretionary spending (the transfer fee they paid to bring the player in and the salary they paid over the league maximum) before the league takes out its percentage.

“The fact that Almiron and Adams are killing it out of the gate (with Newcastle and RB Leipzig), there’s going to be more eyes on MLS and more people looking at talent here,” Paulson said. “We got a core of young talent that we have to develop, we have to play, we have to build their asset value and, frankly, we’re going to need to be willing to sell some folks to be able to reinvest in our team.”

Atlanta United paid a $13 million transfer fee to acquire Almiron in 2016 before selling him to Newcastle for an MLS-record $27 million in January. Atlanta then went out and acquired Gonzalo “Pity” Martinez from River Plate for a reported MLS-record $17 million transfer fee. While the Timbers might not be at the point where they are willing to throw around eight figures so easily, the club is already increasing its investment in player acquisitions and recognizes that it may need to become more active on the selling market in the coming years as MLS continues to grow and evolve.

“We’re at a point where we’re trying to get the roster a little bit younger,” Wilkinson said. “We’re trying to make sure we have succession planning at just about every position, and should those players come in and perform and reach a value where we think it makes sense for the league and ourselves, we would definitely sell.”

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg

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