Dear MLS: Sell 'em if you got 'em

Today’s question:

Why is MLS so against selling players to clubs in other countries?

Seems like a fine business model. There’s certainly money in it.

PSV paid MLS $2.5 million to buy Beasley, and McBride went to Fulham for about that amount. (Bocanegra was a free transfer.) Tim Howard went to Manchester United for $2.2 million to $3 million. He was once MLS’s highest paid player at $270,000 (remember those heady days?) Nowadays, this list , though a year old, is more like it.

Here’s a few good reasons why they should develop and sell:

1. A golden chance to get rid of Clint Mathis, Amado Guevara and all the other overrated players.
2. Give Freddy Adu some experience that he won’t get on the DCU bench.
3. Force people to come out and see the players before they are snapped up by European clubs.
4. The top 3 U.S. keepers play in Europe anyway – Kasey Keller for Germany’s Mönchengladbach; Tim Howard at Man. U.; Tim Hahnemann at Reading.

The downsides are that MLS purportedly made for home-grown soccer. But if so, why the MLS emphasis on bringing in Guevara, Lothar Matthaus and other international players ? Also, many European clubs have a limited number of roster slots, based on European Union work permit rules, for non EU nationals.

As a business model, it's worth thinking about: making money by developing players.