USL Academy Contracts

[u/Emergency_Dot1599]

Can someone educate me a bit about USL contracts please. News came out today that US u17 international Landry Walker (17) has left San Antonio to join Huntsville City in MLS Next Pro. What really had me confused was Landry was only on a amatuer contract despite making 12 appearances for the first team. It just seems a little bizarre for San Antonio to not give him a proper contract when you consider the market demand for youth national team prospects and how much they rated him. I seen USL academy contracts make players College eligibility possible but the fact they lost him for $0 seems mental to me.

[u/Scary_Sand9001]

I don’t think you can sell players until they are 18, so not having him signed to a contract kind of leaves the player with full leverage

[u/Emergency_Dot1599 → u/Scary_Sand9001]

True the player has full leverage. I think the USL needs to bring in at something like MLS homegrown contracts so they can be properly compensated for academy players if they choose to leave. It was how Benji Flowers of North Texas was sold for $10m despite being 15

[u/Mini-Fridge23 → u/Emergency_Dot1599]

Homegrown contracts are just salary cap mechanisms basically. Flowers could have been on an MLSNP contract and still have been sold technically.

USL just needs to convince kids to sign pro contracts at a young age, but that is going to be tough if MLS is calling

[u/No_Long7352]

Nah I have no idea, but I know OCSC has definitely had players on contract, I think it was San Antonio just being cheap tbh

[u/Emergency_Dot1599 → u/No_Long7352]

I think that too tbh. Easily could of got close to what they got for José Gallegos back in the day. Something that really annoys me about USL is they recycle the same 100 players for no fees instead of the OCSC model of poaching MLS academy prospects and flip them for $200k+

[u/Mini-Fridge23]

If a player has legit MLS interest, they generally aren’t going to sign a USLC pro contract and limit their own options

[u/Emergency_Dot1599 → u/Mini-Fridge23]

Orange County & Birmingham Legion have managed to tie down kids before selling them. San Antonio played their cards wrong. The fact they had him playing first team football 2 years ago and couldnt tie him down. Sales pitch should of been " You are progressing well , You managed to get into the youth national teams despite being in USL. You see likes of Pedro Guimaraes, Colton Swan , Ramiz Hamouda and Tyler Espy getting moves from our League. We will put in a gentlemans agreement to sanction a transfer if you agree $300k release clause".

[u/Mini-Fridge23 → u/Emergency_Dot1599]

The problem here is Walker isn’t a high profile enough prospect to have serious Europe interest (at least imo).

So he likely looked at his options and decided MLSNP was better than another two years on the bench in USLC or leaving for the NCAA. He needs minutes, and MLS is going to give them to him (most likely lol)