The ongoing battle between MLS, New England Revolution and the Columbus Crew finally ended today as our boy Pat Noonan was re-acquired by Major League Soccer and the Revolution, then promptly traded to the Columbus Crew for their 2009 1st Round Pick, Allocation Money and ended with swapping their Allocation Spots as the Revs now have the Number 3 position and the Crew down to the 10th.

All of the haggling surrounding Noonan’s return to Major League Soccer revolved initially on Noonan leaving for free at the beginning of 2008 after the Revolution wanted him to take a significant pay cut. With MLS understandably unwilling to pay to get him back in the league even though Columbus had the funds and the right numbers for Noonan to come back, it took two months for the deal to finalize.

The Revolution get ALOT out of this deal as they are in a great situation without Noonan, top of the table in the East, not on the hook for his salary AND (the most important part) they never used or was allocated anything for the initial loss of Noonan when he signed for Norwegian side Aalesunds FK.

image via Wiki