Javier Morales offers exit explanation

Javier Morales revealed the reasons he’s leaving the club today, saying he wasn’t offered a new contract and was told the club wanted to go in another direction.

He later offered more on that point, saying that his agent was contacted on Wednesday, but that he wasn’t interested in hearing an offer now.

“Listen — you know, the tough part of this is telling to your kids that you’re leaving,” he said. “That they have to leave their school, leave their friends after 10 years. After that, it’s tough to come back, because to be honest, I don’t think that is going to happen. “

Morales also offered an interesting tidbit on why he didn’t start against Seattle Sounders in the final match of the regular season, saying that it was down to a contract stipulation that he would automatically trigger a club option.

“I’m not leaving because I’ve signed with another team,” Morales said. “I’m not leaving because of money. I’m leaving — and the most important thing — is I’m not leaving because I want to. It was a surprise to me — because this year if I start 24 games in the regular season, my contract next year in 2017 will be grand. The last game of the season against Seattle. Do you know how many games I played before that game? 23. I didn’t start that game.”

From there, Morales said he thought he would be offered a lower contract — but he also contends he wasn’t.

I assumed the club was not picking up my option for 2017, even though I was more clear when three days later, in the playoff game against Galaxy, I was back in the starting eleven.

I was thinking they will offer me a different contract or something like that. But that never happened. In the meeting, I was informed that they weren’t picking up my option for the next year because they were looking to go in a different way.