Brenner rumored to be a target of EPL side Nottingham Forest

Kevin Wallace

FC Cincinnati’s star striker, no not Brandon Vazquez, the other one, Brenner is in the rumor mill again. This time MLS’s Tom Bogert tweeted just before the Bengals kicked off in the AFC Championship game that English Premier League side Nottingham Forest made a formal offer for the Brazilian striker.

As the tweet said, this was an offer for a loan with a “purchase obligation”. That purchase obligation would either be a mandatory purchase agreement assuming the striker stayed healthy, or have some sort of minutes/appearances/goals trigger that would active once Brenner hit a certain threshold.

This also comes as Tom and local reporter Laurel Pfahler tweeted that Brenner sat out of training on Friday in an attempt to push this move through. It should be noted that Brenner tried this same move last year and it didn’t work, he spent the first part of the season on the bench and finally came back into the team in June.

The mechanics of the MLS roster construction rules make transferring Brenner a little tricky. Brenner is a “Young Designated Player”, and teams are only allowed one of their three DPs to be a “YDP”. Loaning Brenner out would not necessarily mean FCC could then go out and buy another Designated Player.

Brenner being on loan would only open up the YDP roster spot if the loanee team covers all of his wages and/or there is a mandatory purchase agreement attached to the loan. And if FCC went to replace Brenner, they would need to replace him with a YDP, a DP 23 years or younger. So the pipe dream of bringing in someone like Olivier Giroud wouldn’t be possible.

The European transfer window closes January 31st. Brenner can’t be added to a European roster after that date and it becomes much harder to sign a player out of Europe after that point as well. This will be a crucial 48 hours for The FC.