Sporting Kansas City manager Peter Vermes joined The Program on Sports Radio 810 from training camp in Arizona on Tuesday. In a candid interview with Soren Petro, Vermes spoke out on the transfer of Krisztian Nemeth, the loan of Erik Palmer-Brown and expectations for the 2016 season.
"The price just went up so high that we couldn't afford it based on our salary cap," Vermes said of Nemeth's salary requests. "We then had to look for other solutions and the solutions were simple. A team came along and they made a first offer, we had a little negotiation, and eventually it came to a price that we felt was good for us.
"And, look, I'll be frank with you: we also retained a certain percentage of his next transfer. So the fact that he's going to Euro 2016 and could do well there, there's a good chance that another team could come along and buy him and we would actually, from a business perspective, retain some of that transfer as well. The player made it very clear that he was looking for money, and we couldn't meet that."
Vermes also explained Sporting Kansas City's decision to loan 18-year-old defender Palmer-Brown to storied Portuguese club FC Porto.
"The biggest thing was that this wasn't only going to be a great experience from a soccer point of view, it was going to be a tremendous experience for [Palmer-Brown] to grow as a young man," Vermes said. "He's going to have to go to a different country, be in a place where he can't speak the language and maybe try to learn it.
"He's been in Kansas City his whole life, and he said it himself, and this is big of him. 'I think it's time for me to experience something where I can kind of get a chance to see how lucky I am [in Kansas City] and maybe I just don't know it because I've never been anywhere else.'"
Listen to the full interview below as Vermes also discusses how an MLS club can use a transfer fee, motivating factors going into the 2016 season, and his predictions for Super Bowl 50.
