Photo Marjorie Elzey

If Ernst Tanner’s intentions towards two promising youngsters remain as he stated them last December, the signing of Alejandro Bedoya probably ends the Philadelphia Union’s 2024 preseason roster build.

When the Jose Riasco and David Vazquez signings come in mid and late February, the roster will total 31. Supplemental Roster Slot 31, for which the Union once again became eligible with the signing of goalkeeper Oliver Semmle, will be filled. So will senior roster slots 19 and 20 for the first time in the Sporting Director’s tenure.

Using our best unraveling of the byzantine labyrinth of MLS roster rules, here is what we think the roster may look like on roster compliance day. That day is probably 2 a.m. Friday morning February 16 . Everyone on the Concacaf 35-man roster must be eligible to participate in a regular-season league match in his home country in order to be eligible for the Concacaf Champions Cup.

The chart below is entirely unofficial. We followed last year’s salary cap classifications when possible and guessed the rest based on the rules.

Ages are calculated from February 1 .  Age affects eligibility for Supplemental Roster Slots 25-31. Anyone older than 24 must be in supplemental slots 21-24.

For us in the public domain, salary information is unknown after September 15 of last year. That is the information used even though 12 contracts have been – or will have been – signed more recently:  David Vazquez, Jose Riasco, Alejandro Bedoya, Oliver Semmle, Markus Anderson, Kai Wagner, Jamir Berdecio, Nick Pariano, Isaiah LeFlore, Chris Donovan, Jesus Bueno, and Sanders Ngabo.

Without knowing the details of each of the three loan agreements above, we cannot know whether those salaries continue to count against the 2024 salary cap of $6,425,000. They may.

For the record, 2024 GAM has grown to  $3,093,000, and TAM has shrunk to $2,125,000.

Esoterica about the Union’s 2023 salary cap

We have deduced that Union ownership paid only $49,000 in extra salary money above and beyond what the league provided in 2023.  We have no idea what ownership might be required to contribute annually to the league’s salary fund.

The  seven largest Union salaries each exceeded 2023’s maximum individual salary budget charge of $651,250  (The charge increases year to year by a percentage set in the Collective Bargaining Agreement and so does not round to the nearest thousand.) Were there nothing else, Union ownership would have had to cover those seven differences themselves.

But Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) still exists.

TAM can be used to pay down some of a club’s salaries that exceed the maximum budget charge. There are limits and rules. TAM and its sister, General Allocation Money  or GAM,  cannot be mixed together in any given year to reduce a single player’s salary budget charge.  The upper limit on TAM usage in 2023 was $1,651,250. And in 2023 TAM could not reduce a salary charge below $150,000. In simple English, a huge DP salary cannot be entirely bought down.

The seven mentioned 2023 Union contracts total $2,399,000. less than the $2,700,000 TAM available to the Union in 2023.  Union ownership almost certainly paid the $49,000 by which Uhre’s salary exceeded TAM’s 2023 upper limit.

A late development

Jose Riasco is still with Venezuela’s U23 squad in CONMEBOL’s 2024 PreOlympic qualification tournament.  He dressed but did not play against Brazil in Caracas Thursday when La Vinotinto  beat the Canary Squad 3-1 to pass Ecuador in its group standings and qualify for the final round of the tourney. That round consists of three games against Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay ending a week from Sunday

So Riasco might not join the Union in Clearwater until after Sunday, February 11th. And, while it would take an upset or two, he might still end up away for the Paris Olympics this summer.