Major League Soccer has an arcane set of salary rules, with different categories and provisions that have long muddied the ability of followers, both casual and committed, to fully understand what was going on.
The league took a substantial step toward clarifying matters Thursday by releasing roster profiles for each team, breaking down who falls where in the MLS salary system, how long each player’s contract runs and what their option status is. The picture still isn’t totally clear (and how much everyone makes will come soon in a separate announcement from the MLS Players Association), but it’s the clearest look yet at the makeup of rosters.
Even with clarity, though, it can still get complicated, and ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC is no exception.
Goalkeeper Roman Burki is, according to the league, a designated player, a player who can be paid over the league maximum, though the team has never identified him that way. That means the team is using all three of its designated player spots.
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In a practical sense, though, City SC has two open DP spots as it heads toward the summer transfer window that opens July 18, sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel’s preferred time for player acquisitions, because two of the DP spots can be converted to regular spots by using targeted allocation money, money provided by the league for the acquisition of players. For the team’s other two designated players, Eduard Lowen and Klauss, Lowen’s contract can be converted while the contract of Klauss cannot.
Making Burki, the highest-paid player on the team, a designated player makes financial sense for the team. For him not to be a designated player, the team would have to buy down his roughly $1.6 million in annual guaranteed compensation to the league maximum of $683,750 using allocation money. By making him a DP, they save about $850,000, since there’s about a $1 million difference between his actual salary and league maximum, and teams have to pay $150,000 to use the third DP spot. That allocation money can instead be used to acquire other players.
Though Klauss makes less than Burki, his contract ($1.3 million in annual guaranteed compensation) can not be bought down because of the size of the transfer fee the club had to pay German club Hoffenheim to acquire him. Lowen’s contract, for $1.3 million, can be bought down.
The team is using TAM to buy down the contracts of three other players: Tim Parker, Joakim Nilsson and Tomas Ostrak. The league does not say much allocation money a team has. Everyone else on the team makes under the league maximum.
City SC also has two, not one, U22 Initiative players: Chris Durkin and Isak Jensen. Under the league’s U22 Initiative program, players under 22 can be signed for up to the league maximum salary but count only $200,000 against the salary cap. Durkin signed his U22 deal with D.C. United and was traded to City SC in December. Jensen, one of City SC’s original signees, is currently on loan to Danish club Viborg. He had not previously been identified as a U22.
The number of open designated players and U22 spots a team has is important because it speaks to the flexibility a team has in acquiring new players. Though Pfannenstiel has downplayed the importance of designated players — his line has always been that he wants a “designated team†— sometimes, as in the case of Klauss, a player’s transfer fee necessitates it even if his salary does not.
At the moment, teams are allowed a maximum of three U22 Initiative spots, though that number can come down based on how the team uses its DP spots (told you it was complicated). The league is reportedly making a change to that rule in the summer window, where teams would have either three DPs and three U22s, or two DPs and four U22s, with an additional $2 million in allocation money.
The profile also notes that Aziel Jackson is a Homegrown player, even though he didn’t come up through the City SC system like the team’s other Homegrowns, Miguel Perez, Caden Glover and Tyson Pearce. But in his case, Homegrown refers to his contractual status rather than his geographic status because he’s still playing under the Homegrown contract he signed with Minnesota in 2021.
City SC has three players whose contracts run out after this season: Tim Parker, Samuel Adeniran and Josh Yaro. There are nine players whose contracts end after this season but that the team has at least one option year on: Durkin, Jackson, Njabulo Blom, Ben Lundt, Jake Nerwinski, Indiana Vassilev, Hosei Kijima, Anthony Markanich and Akil Watts.
City SC is thought to be in need of help up front after the transfer of Niko Gioacchini, one of the team’s top scorers last season, to an Italian club during training camp. The team has been linked to Cedric Teuchert, a striker with German second-division club Hannover 96. Hannover announced Thursday that Teuchert would not be returning for next season and quoted him as saying there was an “opportunity for my family to go abroad,” though the website said Teuchert has offers from clubs in Belgium and other MLS teams. Teuchert had 12 goals in 26 games over all competitions last season.