Forward Trinity Rodman has agreed to a three-year contract to remain with the Washington Spirit, ending months of speculation about the Olympic gold medalist\u2019s future in the National Women\u2019s Soccer League.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve always had a vision and an idea of what I wanted my legacy to be,\u201d Rodman said at an event announcing her new deal on Thursday in Los Angeles. \u201cWe\u2019re doing that and I\u2019m so grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The speculation over Rodman\u2019s future with the Spirit spurred criticism of the NWSL salary cap and whether it hampered the league from attracting and keeping top players.<\/p>\n
Rodman, 23, became a free agent at the end of last season after five years with the Spirit. One of the biggest stars in the NWSL, keeping her in the league was considered vitally important as other U.S. national team stars, including Naomi Girma and Alyssa Thompson, opted to play in Europe.<\/p>\n
Rodman, who won a gold medal with the United States at the Paris Olympics, has drawn interest from European teams that don\u2019t have a salary cap.<\/p>\n
The Spirit and Rodman struck a multi-year deal that both parties maintained was in compliance with the salary cap, but it was rejected by the league because it went against the spirit of the rules.<\/p>\n
The National Women\u2019s Soccer League Players Association filed a grievance claiming that the NWSL\u2019s rejection of the contract violated Rodman\u2019s free agency rights and violated the collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
To address the salary cap issue, the NWSL in late December adopted a \u201cHigh Impact Player\u201d mechanism that allowed teams to spend up to $1 million over the cap to sign players that meet certain criteria. Those included metrics like national team minutes, inclusion among the 30 candidates for the Ballon d\u2019Or or player rankings by outlets like the Guardian or ESPN.<\/p>\n
The NWSLPA filed a grievance over the rule, claiming it violated the collective bargaining agreement and federal labor law because player compensation must be negotiated. The NWSLPA maintains the league had no authority to \u201cunilaterally create a new pay structure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NWSL\u2019s salary cap is $3.5 million for each team for the 2026 season, although it will increase each year until it hits $5.1 million in 2030.<\/p>\n
Rodman is currently with the national team in their annual January training camp in Carson, California. The team plays a match there against Paraguay on Saturday and then plays Chile on Tuesday in Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n
Rodman has 47 appearances and 11 goals with the national team, more than any other player on the latest roster. She played in one U.S. match last year, a 2-0 victory over Brazil in April, because of injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forward Trinity Rodman has agreed to a three-year contract to remain with the Washington Spirit, ending months of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-424799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}