FC Cincinnati will take part in the 2018 MLS Expansion draft next week, Tuesday, December 11. The club will be able to select up to five players to add to their roster for the 2019 season.
2018 MLS Expansion Draft process:
- Rounds: Five rounds as FC Cincinnati can select up to five players from the eligible pool; they can only claim a single player from any one club
- Selection clock: Permitted three minutes for each selection
- Timeouts: No timeouts implemented
- Trades: No trades permitted during draft
Key parameters:
- Allocation plans:
- FC Cincinnati will receive an additional sum of allocation money as compensation for five exempt teams in the MLS Expansion Draft.
- For a club that has a player claimed from their unprotected roster, that team will receive $50,000 in General Allocation Money for the selection.
- Protected/unprotected player-related rules:
- The five teams who had players selected by the Los Angeles Football Club during the 2017 MLS Expansion Draft are exempt from the 2018 Expansion Draft: Seattle Sounders FC, Sporting Kansas City, the San Jose Earthquakes, Columbus Crew SC and Toronto FC.
- The other 18 returning MLS clubs that competed during the 2018 season can protect 11 players between their Senior, Supplemental and Reserve Roster. If the player’s contract expires at the end of 2018, he will still be considered part of the club’s Senior Roster. If a club protects a player, it is not obligated to exercise the player’s option. It may renegotiate a new budget number for the player as in previous years, subject to the CBA. Option Decline Free Agents and Out of Contracts Free Agents are part of the Expansion Draft and are not automatically protected.
- Players on a club’s Supplemental Roster, other than Generation adidas players who have not been graduated at the end of the 2018 MLS Season or Homegrown Players, are eligible.
- Generation adidas players who have not been graduated at the end of the 2018 MLS Season and Homegrown Players on a Club’s Supplemental/Reserve Roster at the end of the 2018 MLS Season are automatically protected. Clubs do not have to use a protected slot on them.
- Designated Players are NOT automatically protected (i.e., clubs must choose whether to protect such players and if such player is not protected, he will be available for selection in the Expansion Draft).
- If a player has a no-trade clause in his contract, his MLS club must protect him, and he will count as one of the 11 players who may be protected.
- Retired player rules: If a player retires, he will not be a part of the Expansion Draft, but his club will lose its right of first refusal to him should he ultimately decide to play.
- International player rules: Clubs are restricted in the number of international player(s) that they may make available. Clubs may make available a number of international players equal to their total number of international players minus three, provided that if a club has three or fewer international players it may not make more than one international player available.
- Selection of Free Agents: If a Free Agent is selected in the Expansion Draft, the expansion club that selected the player will gain his previous club’s ability to renegotiate a new contract consistent with the CBA before the beginning of Stage 2 of the Re-Entry Draft. If an Out of Contract Free Agent is selected in the Expansion Draft and subsequently signs with his 2018 club via Free Agency, he will be subject to the compensation limitation for Out of Contract Players signing with a new Club, as provided in the CBA.
- If FC Cincinnati selects a Supplemental/Reserve Roster Player, it must offer him a Senior Roster position and he must remain on the Senior Roster as of Roster Compliance Date.
- Maximum player loss: Once one player has been claimed from a club’s non-protected roster, that club is eliminated from the Expansion Draft and may not lose any further players.
- Right to negotiate: FC Cincinnati will have the right to renegotiate a drafted player’s salary (either up or down) without having to place such player on waivers or giving his previous club a right of first refusal.
Background:
For the first time with the 2016 Expansion Draft, the league changed its system as Minnesota United FC and Atlanta United were granted only five selections each, and General Allocation Money awarded to them in lieu of lost picks.
As recently as 2014, the Expansion Draft allowed for 10 players to be selected by any participating expansion clubs; in the 1997 Expansion Draft, up to 12 selections were allowed.
Last year’s Expansion Draft included the selections of former Seattle Sounders FC goalkeeper
Tyler Miller
, 21-year-old Ghanaian forward
Latif Blessing
(formerly of Sporting Kansas City), who was voted No. 11 on the 2018 MLSsoccer.com 22 Under 22, and former San Jose Earthquakes forward
Marco Ureña
, who represented Costa Rica in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
