Kreis visited Manchester to meet with NYCFC, MCFC leadership, Straus reports

In a report released late yesterday by the always-reliable Brian Straus, it came to light that Jason Kreis, our coach — and long may that be the case — traveled to Manchester, England to meet with leadership from New York City FC, owned by Manchester City.

Read Straus's report on Kreis and NYCFC

That's distressing for a number of reasons, most of them revolving around the possibility that we might lose Kreis to an incoming club.

The official club statement, again via Straus, is exactly what you'd expect it to be: "We are aware of inquiries made as to the future availability of head coach Jason Kreis. He is obviously an attractive candidate. Our ongoing conversations with him regarding his long-term future continue to be positive and productive."

The question, then: What do we know, and what don't we know?

We don't know if Jason Kreis has accepted a position, and we don't know if Jason Kreis has renewed his contract.

Really, it's that simple. Once again, this is an ongoing situation and speculation surely doesn't do much good. We might — and rightly so — ask when Kreis visited Manchester, but we should also recognize that he did so with the permission of Real Salt Lake.

We might also ask how we've arrived at this point, where Kreis has been allowed to run down his contract. It's been an ongoing situation, and there has been discussion about it all year. But remember, ownership of the club changed hands at the beginning of the year — that says a lot about how we're here. Neither Dave Checketts nor Dell Loy Hansen may be wholly at fault, but that would seem to be an ownership issue.

Whatever happens, this is one particularly scintillating case of brinksmanship. Let's hope it doesn't affect our team.