Monday MLS Breakdown: Application Of Home Grown Player Rule - Goal.com

The most complete look at the current state of the HGP rule and the exceptions to the rule that have been granting. Yes, Brent Richards was an exception, but there have been a few others.

There's also a nugget that now seems to incentivize a club operating an amateur PDL team in order to main their connections to former U18 players who are then at colleges. The clarity added in this story includes quotes from Todd Durbin of MLS but still reinforces that MLS granted the Timbers an exception that the rest of the league does not receive.

5 months ago Dave Clark 8 comments 0 recs |

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How is it with Palodichuk?

Played for the Timbers U23 and for Sounders Academy. Would be a HGP for the Sounders, right?

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by Paddi on Jan 9, 2012 9:18 AM PST reply actions

At last asking

the Sounders expected him to a be one of their claimed players.

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by Dave Clark on Jan 9, 2012 11:48 AM PST up reply actions

So . . .

If I read these rules correctly, there is nothing besides money that would prevent the Sounders from establishing an Academy like Barcelona’s. We could recruit and sign youth players to contracts, pay for their soccer education as well as their academic education, and then claim as many of them as we wanted.

Would this Academy even need to be in Seattle? Could you establish the Sounders Academy in Los Angeles, and then recruit nationwide? I suspect Roth and Carey would love to have a Sounders Youth Academy in SoCal.

by Choskasoft on Jan 9, 2012 9:29 AM PST reply actions

You can only claim a couple players a year out of your "local" area

So an out-of-area academy is not practical. MLS gave RSL the rights to Arizona as a local development area when the team was created.

Now if the Sounders were given all of Washington (north of Vancouver), N. Idaho, Montanta, etc., maybe it would make sense to set up a second academy in Spokane or the Tri-Cities to pick up players from the eastern part of their “home” area.

by CMC_Stags on Jan 9, 2012 10:36 AM PST up reply actions

Residencies are allowed

They are a dramatic increase in costs. Currently RSL and Vancouver have full residencies while FCD has a partial (schooling by Frisco school system).

It is also highly doubtful that MLS teams will sign youth players to contracts that they don’t expect to play professionally until after they become adults. Doing so eliminates college scholarships. Remember even at the most productive Academies (of any format) it is more common for the player to never be a pro than to be a pro.

A team could promise scholarships to college as well, that would again be an increase in costs.

I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
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by Dave Clark on Jan 9, 2012 11:51 AM PST up reply actions