Sporting Kansas City Looking To Free Up International Roster Slots

A couple of weeks back we took a look at Sporting Kansas City's International roster situation. Things haven't changed since then, but it appears the club is working on freeing up as many as four slots, some of them within the next month or so.

In Steve Brisendine's article on MLSsoccer.com, four players on Kansas City's current roster are listed as actively seeking permanent resident status, allowing the club more international roster flexibility in the future. Those four players are Julio Cesar (Brazil), Aurelien Collin (France), Jimmy Nielsen (Denmark), and first round draft pick, Dom Dwyer (England).

The three other players currently occupying international roster slots on the team are Daneil Cyrus (Trinidad & Tobago), Korede Aiyegbusi (England), and Peterson Joseph (Haiti).

Sporting sent one of their international roster slots to the San Jose Earthquakes in the trade to acquire midfielder Bobby Convey.

Each MLS club is currently allowed 8 international roster slots. Clubs are allowed to trade slots to other clubs, but all traded slots return back to their original team once the MLS season ends. The rest of a club's roster must be made up of domestic players.

For the 16 US-based clubs in Major League Soccer, a domestic player is a player that is one of the following:

• a U.S. citizen
• a permanent resident (green card holder)
• the holder of a special status (refugee or asylum status)

For the three Canadian clubs in MLS, the following rules apply:

• Each club must have at least three Canadian domestic players on their roster
• Any player with the legal right to work in Canada is considered a domestic player (Canadian citizen, permanent resident, part of protected class)