Dom Dwyer Turned Down a Contract Extension

While Dominic Dwyer has been off at the CONCACAF Gold Cup representing the United States Men’s National team, Sporting Kansas City have gone a respectable 2-0-2 (though just one of those games was on the road). Despite Sporting KC looking pretty good without Dwyer, it’s not something they’d like to make a long term possibility.

According to Goal.com, Kansas City made an offer to Dwyer early in the season that would make his salary in the neighborhood of $1.25 million per year. That would represent a substantial raise over his 2017 guaranteed compensation as reported by the MLS Players Union of $668,750.

Despite the near doubling of his annual pay, Dwyer reportedly turn the deal down. This is a deal that SKC doesn’t even have to offer as they have Dom under contract through the 2018 season. So at a minimum (barring a transfer or trade) he’ll be playing in the blue and blue for another season and a half.

When reaching out for comment, Sporting KC director of player personnel Brian Bliss had the following to say.

"We want Dom back, that's why we started this conversation earlier rather than later. He's an important piece and we hope to get something done with him."

According to Goal.com, even though Dwyer is taking a a risk by not signing an extension early, he’s set to get a raise in 2018 up to $900,000 and that figure can apparently rise to $1 million if he were to reach certain incentives. Either way it would appear to make Dwyer the highest paid player on the team as Roger Espinoza currently holds that distinction at $850,000.

All this negotiation apparently started early in the year, “shortly after preseason” according to Bliss. At that time, Dwyer hadn’t yet hit the slump he is currently on with Sporting KC. He hasn’t scored a goal for his club since a brace against the New York Red Bulls on May 3rd. In fact all five of his goals were scored between that date and April 9th.

For comparison he scored 50 goals in league play over the prior three seasons. He trails only Bradley Wright-Phillips (68) over that time frame.

Despite the slump, Dwyer could still be in for a bigger payday. The reason is his play with the United States. He has played in two games and scored two goals. If he scores in his third appearance for his adopted country he’ll be in rare company. That could also lead him to an even bigger payday. The question becomes if that payday will be with SKC or if he’ll get sold overseas. When Bliss was asked about transferring Dwyer, it seemed like a real possibility.

"If somebody comes with a good offer that makes sense for the club then we're certainly going to let Dom go. Because if Dom has an opportunity to make $2 million or $2.5 million playing at a team like Everton for example, we've got to let him know that because that's for his family and himself. We're not averse to transferring him but it's got to make sense for everybody."

The fact that Bliss brings up Everton, a Premier League team that Sporting Club (the entity behind Sporting KC) were rumored to be buying, seems awfully specific. Now the deal to buy into the Premier League did not come to be, but there likely remains a connection between the two clubs because of it.

Could this be foreshadowing of an impending sale of Dwyer. Everton are without their number one striker Romelu Lukaku, who left the club to join rival Manchester United. Lukaku was replaced by Wayne Rooney, the oldest 31 year old on the planet. The secondary transfer window is currently open in MLS and the Premier League is firmly entrenched in their offseason.

It’s probably baseless speculation, but you just never know. We’ll bring you more when we have it.