Quinn Sullivan - New U22 Deal
Why not just say it, Philadelphia?
Yesterday, the Philadelphia Union announced a new contract for Quinn Sullivan, with the deal keeping him on a guaranteed contract through 2027, with a club option for 2028. A fantastic piece of business, but interestingly omitted one bit of information that I had a good hunch on… that it would be a U22 deal, a mechanism that allows teams to take a lower budgetary hit despite the salary the player is earning.
It was not until this morning that an eagle-eyed follower shared an image from Quinn Sullivan’s representatives, Wasserman Soccer, confirming that the deal for the young American was indeed a U22 signing.
I’m not quite sure why the Union omitted this incredibly important detail, but frankly, it comes as no surprise considering the comments from Jim Curtin and Ernst Tanner over the spring and summer.
"How do you use them? Or maybe, as a club—just thinking out loud—we could focus on using them for good young American players. That could be a strategy for us, where you secure them for a while, and they hit your cap at a much friendlier number for the length of that contract. So, strategically, there's a lot of internal discussion going on."
"And I don't disagree with you about when we should use the Under-22 initiative or when we have a better chance to do so. But if you look across the league, there have been a lot of 'misses' with the Under-22 initiative. We also need to recognize that we have many academy players who are essentially Under-22 initiative players by other standards. We're bringing them in, and I'm talking about a player like McGlynn, who basically fits that status. We could even include Quinn Sullivan, who essentially has that status. And then there are the players we've already had, like Paxten—these are basically our Under-22 initiative players. But even so, we want to explore this further in the future, and we now have an even better opportunity to act in that sense.... We have nine games left in the regular season, so our focus will be on that, and we'll revisit this in the winter when we can bring new forces and infusions to our roster."
Again, not sure why the secrecy, but it is what it is.
Compensation-wise? Who knows where Sullivan lands.
However, Brian Gutiérrez of Chicago, who recorded six goals and five assists across all competitions this year, is earning $895,879. Quinn, on the other hand, finished the season with seven goals and ten assists.
A well-earned raise for the young American.
J.
Good question!