Ilic Still In Limbo, Much Like The Fans

Game preview coming later but this is sticking in my craw and I wanted to get it out.  Brendan Ploen of the Denver Post did the heavy lifting and got confirmation from the Rapids that Marko Ilic's loan has expired.  He also reports that the team is in negotiations with Kortrijk to bring him back on a permanent transfer.  There was an option to buy in the loan agreement that wasn't triggered so presumably the Rapids are interested in him but no at the number originally agreed on, so they're trying to do a deal at a lover number.  (As an aside, I can't remember a time when the Rapids exercised the buy close in a loan deal as opposed to renegotiating it to a lower number.  Good for business, but it makes me wonder what the point of those clauses are and if the Rapids have a "rep" now for not exercising them.)

I have thoughts on the idea of signing Ilic, and we'll get to them, but what really annoys me about this is that its another self-inflicted wound my the Rapids communication staff.  When the loan deal was announced the language the Rapids used was that he was on loan "through July".  At first that made sense, because that would allow him to play in the two Leagues Cup games at the end of the month.  But then Kortrijk's announcement of the deal stated it was through July 5th, the opening of the MLS transfer window.  That made a lot less sense given the lack of game time he would likely get.  Because of that there were two different dates floating around that even informed outlets like Burgundy Wave were confused by.

Why?  What was the point of a generic "through July" language in the announcement?  Did the Rapids think they were going to confuse Dallas, Houston, Nashville, and Toluca (our July opponents after the 4th) by them not knowing who might be in goal?  Does anyone really think that MLS teams care that much which keeper is playing for the Rapids?  And any benefit would be fleeting, when Ilic wasn't on the gameday roster for Dallas tomorrow it was going to be clear why.  Were they just lazy and assumed nobody would care about the end of the loan?  To be fair, very few people probably do, but those that do, like Burgundy Wave, Juanners, Holding the High Line (and me), are the type of fans and media you want to keep engaged and trusting the team.  Instead once again we're talking about the team being super-secretive with everything.  That's not how you build a fanbase.

Media and bloggers were told in the offseason that the club was going to be better about this sort of information.  Instead its the same fuzzy information we've dealt with for years on everything from injuries to contract lengths to callup timing.  It continues to be difficult to take the club seriously when they continue to run their communications like its amateur hour.