On the one hand, they lost their leading scorer just as they entered into the straightaway for three major pieces of soccer hardware. 

On the other hand, they demonstrated that a half-decade down the road, the system works as designed and should stimulate even more such transactions, just as Tristan Borges’ transfer five years ago.

When Forge FC officially sold Kwasi Poku earlier this week to Belgian second-division side RWD Molenbeek, it had to disappoint hard-core fans and also puzzle casual observers who are not used to the way soccer—at all levels—conducts its financial business.

For the second time, the Hammers have accomplished what the CPL as a league hopes to do –and needs to do —with increasing regularity.

Until this week, the highest transfer (soccer parlance for ‘sale’ or ‘trade’) fee a Canadian Premier League team had obtained for a player was the $300,000 to $450,000 which Forge received from Belgium’s OH Leuven for the then-20-year-old Borges after he won every major personal award in the CPL’s inaugural 2019 season.

While Forge won’t say how much they got for moving Poku, reports have the amount in the eye-popping $850,000 (CDN) range.

“It was full value,” Head Coach and Technical Director Bobby Smyrniotis said.

And Poku fits the profile of a player who’d gain that much on the transfer market. He has the rarest of skills in a low-scoring sport—an instinct for the net—he’s only 22, and he’s heading for a team which fell out of the first division last year and needs an infusion of young talent to get back to the top tier and stay there.

And Poku, of course, gets a good contract, the value of which is, as yet, unannounced.

The difference between Borges and Poku, of course, was that Borges was transferred after the season, and Poku, the Brampton native natural left-back before Smyrniotis unexpectedly installed him as a striker in mid-May to fill the injury absences of Jordan Hamilton and Terran Campbell—heads for Belgium just as the current international transfer window closed, with the Forge still engaged in heated runs for first overall in the regular season, the playoff championship and the Canadian Championships.

After memorable goals against both CF Montréal and TFC in the national tournament, he will not be a Hammer for Tuesday’s second leg against Toronto.

Yet this is a good thing. Just as the transfer of Borges was. The two are related. Borges “bet on himself and won” as Smyrniotis put it after Borges left a Dutch youth academy to return to play semi-pro for Smyrniotis at Sigma the year before the CPL started, and parlayed that into a big contract for himself in Europe after one season. Canadian, and international, players took note because there was a throbbing example of how coming to the CPL to develop can lead to a quicker upward path.

Part of the financial structure of all soccer leagues—even at the highest tier but particularly in leagues like the CPL—involves the age-old economic tenet of buying low and selling high. Transfer fees are used in the top leagues to help finance incoming stars on transfer and, in lower-level leagues, as part of the profit-and-loss statement.

If you look at it from one angle, the income from this sale represents around three-quarters of the CPL’s annual per-team salary cap.

“It’s in the natural progression of the game,” Smyrniotis said.  “We’re a team that wants to win championships, and we’re a team that wants to develop players. When you do things the right way there’s always upward movement in this sport. That has to be part of the ambition of players and everyone involved in this club.

“So although it’s a tough time to be losing a player like Kwasi, it’s the right thing for the player, it’s the right thing for the club, all around, and it’s the natural order of this beautiful global game.”

Poku’s record transfer should help attract other players here, including some in the MLS or lower-level foreign leagues, who see a chance to re-set their career arcs.

“I think so,” Smyrniotis says. “It’s not just the financial side of it. It is that, but we’ve also done a great job of developing players, in players moving on from here.

“This is also a season which started off with another transfer—Manjrekar James to LD Alajuelense in Costa Rica—so it shows that players can move at different ages. We always talk about the young guys, and of course, we want the best young players to play in this league, but (older players moving on) shows how great of a job we do not only trying to compete and win every year but making sure we’re giving players opportunities.”

When Borges went to Belgium, it was part of a huge couple of weeks for the fledging CPL which saw its first transfer sending Joel Waterman from Cavalry to the Montréal Impact of  MLS, followed by the Borges deal, worth about eight or ten times as much, and the arrival of new Ottawa owners Atlético Madrid.

Poku and Manjrekar James earned Forge transfer fees, but this season three other Hammers whose contracts had expired signed with other clubs for higher salaries: Rezart Rama went to Albania; Abou Sissoko to Atlético Ottawa, and Woobens Pacius to Nashville SC of MLS.

“The transfer is better because it leaves resources for the club, it helps us out,” Smyrniotis says. “It doesn’t help us re-spending that amount of money for a transfer of our own—but it helps in infrastructure and what we need inside of our locker room, whether it’s the medical departments or training. It just gives us a little more flexibility with all that.”

Poku had eight goals in league play this year and another two in the Canadian championships, so what happens now at striker?

“When we started the season we had two very capable, proven guys playing that position in Jordan Hamilton and Terran Campbell. Through various injuries they were out of the lineup, giving Kwasi an opportunity to shine there. That’s one thing we always talk about:  you have to be prepared because opportunity can come for anyone.

‘We have two very capable players there and we have some other guys, between players like Béni (Badibanga) and Nana (Ampomah). 

We have a whole unit of players who can definitely do the business.”

The international transfer window is now closed for the season but until Sept. 12, CPL clubs can still sign Canadian players who aren’t attached internationally, including CPL players and those playing for the three Canadian MLS teams. Then there are also “free” players who aren’t signed anywhere professionally, as when Badibanga joined the club last year.

“But it would have to be someone who can come in and significantly help the lineup,” Smyrniotis said. “We’re healthy and we’re  happy where we are.”