On March 30th, 2017, the Vancouver Whitecaps made the surprise move to trade Kekuta Manneh to the Columbus Crew in exchange for defensive midfielder Tony Tchani, $75,000 in General Allocation Money, and $225,000 in Targeted Allocation Money. If the Crew resigned Manneh (which didn’t happen), the Caps would have also received Columbus’ first round 2018 SuperDraft pick.
It took a while before Kekuta saw the field in Columbus, but he ended the season appearing in 19 matches, starting 9, for a total of 838 minutes, and registered 4 goals and 3 assists.