Last week, Trinity Rodman signed a new three-year contract to stay with the Washington Spirit. This will reportedly make her the highest-paid women’s player. This is after the US national team forward received interest from lucrative European clubs, and the NWSL side was unable to match those offers under the salary cap initially.
This deal ends months of uncertainty about her future since her last contract with the club expired in December, a $1.1 million one-year deal.
This new deal has broader impacts and consequences. This comes after the NWSL created a new “High Impact Player Rule”, also dubbed the “Rodman Rule”, to ensure the league can remain a destination league and obtain high elite stars. This rule permits clubs to spend up to $1 million above the salary cap if the player in question meets any one of a specific list of criteria that demonstrate their credentials, for example, finishing in the top 30 in the Ballon d’Or over Europe is crucial for the league, with the likes of Naomi Girma, Alyssa Thompson and Sam Coffey alone leaving to Europe in the last 12 months.
“All of us are profoundly grateful that she has chosen to stay with us, despite some compelling alternatives,” Spirit owner Michele Kang said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, before later adding: “I’m just thrilled to tell you, I did deliver, didn’t I?”
Rodman has spent her whole professional career at the Spirit since the club selected her in the 2021 NWSL draft. Even after she had bids and interests from Europe, which she reportedly turned down, she won the championship the year she joined and reached the final on two other occasions.
“It feels amazing. I’m thrilled, I’m very blessed. I think it’s a monumental and game-changing moment,” the California-born forward said. “Everyone is going to have their opinions on it – but I’ve never really cared.
“Going into the off-season, [someone asked me], ‘Do you feel like you’re finished with Spirit?’ and I didn’t even need half a second to answer, I was like, ‘no’. There’s so much more that I have to give.”
The club’s president of soccer operations, Haley Carter, when probed on whether the “High Impact Player Rule” had been deployed for the deal, appeared to confirm that was the case, with Carter mentioning “the need to think creatively about the solutions that enable the NWSL to attract and retain world-class talent” before adding: “The key takeaway is the willingness of the board of governors to think of creative ways to retain that talent.”
This goes back to December, when the league initially blocked an offer from the club that would have averaged over $1 million annually, because it violated league rules due to its backloaded structure. The NWSL Players Association filed a grievance on Rodman’s behalf over the contract refusal.
The union filed its own separate grievance over the “High Impact Player rule,” accusing the league of breaching the collective bargaining agreement and federal labour law. This grievance is the second filed by the NWSL Players Association in the past six weeks.
An NWSL spokesperson said the new mechanism is critical to the league's growth and health, enabling its teams to compete on the international stage for talent.
Rodman has 47 caps for her country and has scored 11 international goals, as well as providing nine assists, since her first senior cap in 2022.
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