Commentary

How do new MLS Roster Rules impact FCC?

On July 18, Major League Soccer announced alterations to its salary cap rules for the remainder of the season, also allowing for teams to have greater roster flexibility.

The newly announced rules will now allow for each team to decide between two paths. One in which a team can select to have thee Designated Players and gain unrestricted access to three U22 Roster spots. Then, one where you can elect to have two Designated Players, four U22 Roster spots and up to $2 Million in additional General Allocation Money.

What do these terms mean?

MLS has several different classifications of players that all fit under one Roster Cap. The two that we are concerned with are Designated Players and U22 Initiative Players.

A Designated Player is a player whose combined cost of the annualized Transfer Cost and Annual Salary exceeds the Max Budget Charge.

To put it in simpler terms, whenever a player’s rights are bought by another team, the two teams will engage in a Transfer Fee. These can range from minuscule single-dollar deals to hundreds of millions of dollars. For most of the world, there aren’t many restrictions, but in MLS that transfer fee counts towards a budget charge for the length of their initial contract.

So, let’s imagine FCC buys a new player, let’s call them Weston for argument’s sake, for $3 Million dollars from another team and signs that player to a three-year deal. Instead of having that whole $3 million dollar charge come crashing down in year one, FCC would break it up and pay $1 million dollars every year for three years. ($3 million fee divided by number of years of the initial deal [3 years]).

They then take that annual cost, in Weston’s case $1 Million, and add the annual salary of the player to that annual cost. Let’s say Weston’s annual salary is $1 Million, meaning Weston’s Annual Budget Charge is $2 million. If this Annual Budget Charge is greater than the Max Budget Charge, which in 2024 is $1,683,750, then they are considered a Designated Player.

A U22 Initiative Player is a player who is 22 years old or younger and has an annual salary of less than $683,750.

This is surprisingly straightforward to understand. The one oddity is that unlike a Designated Player, a U22 Player’s Transfer Fee does not count toward their annual cost. So if we imagined that our player Weston was 20 years old when FCC signed him, that $3 million transfer fee wouldn’t count towards his Annual Budget Charge and they would only count his salary towards the salary cap.

Where does FCC’s roster stand now?

Under the current roster rules, FC Cincinnati has access to three Designated Players and 1 U22 Player, and they are all currently being occupied by players.

Cincy’s three DPs are Luciano Acosta, Obinna Nwobodo, and Aaron Boupendza. They also have one U22 Player on their roster, Kevin Kelsy, and one U22 player on loan, Marco Angulo, who does not count towards their count.

What do the new rules mean for the roster?

Chris Albright will be sitting in an interesting position with these new rules. It could be assumed that because FCC has all three DP spots occupied, they are automatically stuck on a path for three DPs and three U22s. However, while the rules require teams to declare which path they are going down, it does not come into effect until August 14.

So it means that the well-known thought that Boupendza would be moved this summer, would not impact FCC’s roster flexibility.

Regardless of whether FCC removes Boupendza from the roster, however, they will gain access to 2 U22 roster spots. This automatically gives the front office immediate relief and will allow them to search for two players to add to the roster with a relatively low amount of friction. It is likely that they would not recall Marco Angulo back from his loan, which could mean we see two new players join this window.

If we were to speculate I think the three DP, three U22 path is the most likely path forward for FCC. 

The front office has indicated that they want to be splashy this summer, and with how clear the stories are about Boupendza departing, it seems quite likely that they would like to replace a DP for a DP. There haven’t been any clear links to FCC since Weston McKennie was linked to the club, but those have cooled recently, and it seems like the team is moving in a different direction.

The other thing indicating this being their most likely path forward is that MLS raised the ceiling for the amount of money you can transform into General Allocation Money from an outgoing transfer fee. Previously MLS teams could only transform $1.1 million to GAM. But the new rules raised the amount to $3 million.

With Alvaro Barreal still on the roster as a loanee, and conversations seeming to trend towards a sale to Cruzeiro in the summer, FCC could out-gain the additional GAM proposed by MLS for choosing the two DP, four U22 model.

Inevitably we will find out the direction of the club soon as the new transfer window is open for all MLS clubs

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