Luke Rodgers' Visa Application Denied

The New York Red Bulls released the following statement on their website today regarding the visa situation of English striker Luke Rodgers:

After going through the entire immigration and appeals process, Luke's P-1 Visa application has unfortunately been denied by the U.S. government for now. We have spoken with Luke about potential options and have mutually decided that it would be in all parties' best interests to terminate his current MLS contract so he could play elsewhere. However, we will also continue to track his progress this year while working with immigration officials with the goal that he could join the Red Bulls sometime in the future.

To summarize: Rodgers will not be playing for the Red Bulls for the foreseeable future, almost certainly for the rest of the season. This is (obviously) a significant loss for New York, and we'll have more analysis of this here on Once A Metro in the coming days. First reaction, though, is that this is seriously bad news, but if Kenny Cooper can continue playing as well as he has so far, we'll be alright.