What is new in the 2024 MLS roster rules?
While a lot remains the same year-to-year, there are some key differences.
On Tuesday, Major League Soccer released its roster rules and regulations for the upcoming 2024 season. While year-to-year, there aren’t massive changes to these rules, there were several key differences that will help clubs like FC Dallas build out their rosters this year.
Let’s dive into the changes:
New Budget Charges
The salary budget per club is $5.47 million (up from $5.21 million) and the TAM floor is now $683,750 (up from $651,250).
The senior minimum is $89,716, up from $85,444; the reserve minimum is $71,401, up from $67,360.
The Maximum Salary Budget Charge for a single player is $683,750.
Allocation Updates
The Garber Bucks are also seeing a slight increase in 2024. General Allocation Monday (GAM) is now at $2.585 million in 2024, up from $1.9 million. Target Allocation Monday (TAM) is now $2.4 million in 2024, down from $2.72 million.
TAM, on the other hand, no longer expires. Any “unused” TAM would “roll over” to the next year before expiring after four windows (or two years). Teams can now essentially bank their TAM for the future. However, it is still likely that TAM will be gone in future seasons and merged back with GAM.
New Roster Slots
There are no changes to slots 21-24. Those can still be filled with Senior Minimum Salary Players ($89,716), which may include Homegrown Players, Generation adidas Players, any specifically designated players eligible for the MLS SuperDraft, or Homegrown Players earning more than the Senior Minimum Salary subject to the Homegrown Player Subsidy.
For FC Dallas, this may end up being guys like Jimmy Maurer, Omar Gonzalez, Amet Korca.
We have changes to slots 25-30. 29 and 30 can now be used for Generation adidas players, where clubs previously couldn't do so. In previous years, slots 29 and 30 were considered Homegrown Reserve.
These slots (25-30) may be filled with players earning the Reserve Minimum Salary ($71,401), which may include Homegrown Players, Homegrown Players earning more than the Reserve Minimum Salary subject to the Homegrown Player Subsidy, or Generation adidas Players (earning the Reserve Minimum Salary).
New U.S. residency interview window
The deadline for when a player must have their U.S. residency interview to be considered a domestic player has changed from February 24 to the opening date of the summer transfer window on July 18 to have either been granted a green card or appeared for a GC interview.
Discovery Slots
FC Dallas fans will remember this came into play with the signing of Petar Musa. Starting after the 2024 Roster Compliance date, clubs will have five Discovery List slots instead of seven. However, expansion side San Diego will still receive seven slots in their inaugural season.
Unlimited Intraleague Loans
While we really do not see a ton of these types of loans, the league has ditched the two-loan maximum for an unlimited number of loans within the league.
A couple of notes on the league rules:
There were two changes that I could see versus the 2023 rules which were implemented to help Inter Miami become roster compliant.
As Drew pointed out, the first rule was a change in the International Status designation for players. Last year you had to have your green card or have performed your visa interview prior to the start of the season in order to not count as an International. This year you can delay your visa Interview until July 18 (Secondary Window) and still not count as an International – so you are getting a 5 month grace period. Given how many internationals Miami has brought in since last summer this clearly seems like a rule implemented to allow them to play their new signings immediately while buying time for some of them to initiate the green card process.
The second rule change was regarding the sale of a DP player. Last year if you sold a DP you could not convert any of the sale into GAM, but this year you can as long as the DP does not make more than the TAM buydown amount ($1.6M). Gregore was a DP for Inter Miami last year and he was just sold to Botafogo for reportedly $3M. They can use up to $1.2M of his fee as GAM to help them buy down salaries – which they probably needed to do.
Finally, I think the limit on intraleague loan players is still two. Two are still specified in the bullet points, but it looks like MLS edited the opening paragraph to remove the redundant reference to the two loanee limit that was in the 2023 version of the rules. I think it's just an editing change.