Roster update after Fire buy out Souquet
The Fire announced that they have bought out defender Arnaud Souquet’s contract. The move was expected after the Parisian was kept out of the team’s preseason training – the second year in a row in which that was the case.
The team has tried for over a year to move the 32-year-old right back for over a year, but Souquet did not want to leave the team – or Chicago. While many players from abroad wait to bring over their families after coming to MLS, Souquet’s wife and two daughters joined him in Chicago almost immediately and he and his family have been quick to embrace the city.
Still, Souquet has struggled to live up to his hefty contract, which saw him earn $699,679 last year according to salary data released by the MLS Players Association. That put him 9th out of all players listed as right-backs by the MLSPA, ahead of players like Kyle Duncan from the New York Red Bulls ($555,750) or Álex Roldan in Seattle ($465,000), and not far behind Atlanta’s Brooks Lennon ($740,000) or Colorado’s Reggie Cannon ($841,500).
The buyout – which the team can exercise unilaterally – frees a senior roster spot as well as Souquet’s hefty cap hit, although not an international roster slot, as he received his Green Card ahead of just his second year in the league.
By placing Souquet on waivers, other teams around the league may add him to their roster by agreeing to absorb some portion of the defender’s guaranteed salary. If that happens, the amount of cash the Fire will have to pay him will correspondingly decrease, but the Fire’s cap situation will not change as his wages are already off the Fire’s books.
What this means for the Fire’s roster
MLS recently announced that teams now have two buyouts per season, leaving the Fire able to unilaterally terminate one additional player in 2025. The team’s buyout would also be triggered if a player is sent to FC Lugano in the summer, unless there were other bona fide offers from other teams on the table. Simply having a buyout available gives the team leverage if they are trying to move on from a player.
The move also clears a glut at right back for the Fire, a position where, until today, the team was four players deep on its depth chart, including new U22 Initiative signee Leonardo Barroso, who has looked impressive so far in preseason after arriving from Sporting CP’s reserve squad.
Souquet’s departure leaves the Fire with seventeen remaining players on the senior roster, one short of the required 18 that the team must have by the roster compliance date of February 21 (the day before the start of the regular season and the Fire’s season opener in Columbus). To solve this issue, the team can acquire another player or move a player from slots 21-24 on the supplemental roster, a roster compliance maneuver that bears no real impact on either the player or the team.
That would also mean that the team would have space to move Chris Cupps onto the supplemental roster, enabling the defender to play in more than six league matches with the first team after the 16-year-old impressed in preseason before joining the U.S. Under-17 National Team for World Cup qualifying.
With just over a week to go before the start of the regular season, Berhalter and his staff have continued to rework the team that finished last in the conference last season, and may still have additional moves to announce before the team takes to the pitch in Columbus.
