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With a World Cup coming up this summer and chances limited at Tottenham Hotspur, striker Jermain Defoe was forced to find a new place to ply his trade. Now, it seems that Defoe has found that new place and it is in the MLS with Toronto FC. The Toronto Sun first reported on the Canadian MLS club's interest in Defoe back in December and now, they are revealing that the deal is complete and that Defoe will be unveiled as one of the club's new Designated Players at a press conference on Monday.
The club all but confirmed the deal when they sent this marketing video out this afternoon:
Still no word on what the fee for Defoe might be, but I would expect that there will be news about that next week. As I stated yesterday, I would expect the deal to be somewhere in the neighborhood of £5 million. The move will leave Spurs with only three senior strikers, one of whom is youngster Harry Kane. Spurs may then be forced to complete one of the rumored deals for other middling strikers who are less worried about playing time because they won't be at the World Cup (I'm looking at you Steven Fletcher and Shane Long).
If this is goodbye to Jermain Defoe it will be a sad one. He had so many great moments in a Tottenham shirt, but you can't really fault the guy for trying to get more playing time ahead of the World Cup. If other former Premier League strikers performances in MLS are any indication, then Defoe should do quite well in the league and should be able to reclaim his place in the England squad.
