Philadelphia Union trade away International Roster Slot to St. Louis City for GAM

With the trade, the Union continue to stock pile GAM for 2025, taking their total to $425K between trades with Nashville SC and St. Louis City.

Chester, PA—The Philadelphia Union have announced that they’ve acquired $75K in GAM (General Allocation Money) from St. Louis City in exchange for a 2024 International Roster Slot.

Current International Roster Slots

As I wrote last week when the Union sold Richard Odada to Dundee United, that opened up a second International Roster Slot for the Union. The Union already had a slot open because Joaquin Torres is currently out on loan. MLS rules state, “During the loan period, the club will receive roster relief but not Salary Budget relief unless otherwise determined pursuant to the loan agreement.”

Now, with the trade between the Philadelphia Union and St. Louis City, that leaves the Union with one open International Roster Slot.

(Current Philadelphia Union players taking up International Roster Slots)

Previous Trades and Fan Reactions

In case you forgot, the Union traded a 2024 and 2025 International Roster Slot to Nashville for GAM. Lots of Union fans seem to be pretty upset on social media that the Union traded away an International Roster Slot to St. Louis City, but it’s also worth noting that the Union also made a trade earlier this year with Nashville for GAM.

The Union traded a 2024 and 2025 International Roster Slot to Nashville for $350K in 2025 GAM. The Nashville and now St. Louis City trades give the Union $425K in GAM for 2025. There are multiple possibilities for what the Union can do with that GAM, for example: buying down a players Salary Budget Charge or trading it for acquiring players in MLS. One thing is for sure: Ernst Tanner is making sure the Union don’t find themselves in a situation where they are strapped for money once again.

Ernst Tanner’s Perspective

On the Union’s official podcast, ‘The Doop,’ hosted by Sage Hurley, Ernst Tanner spoke about the difficulties the club faced this offseason. “In [the] off-season we had a situation where by rule there was not much possible. We could only do these signings [Markus Anderson, Sanders Ngabo, and Oliver Semmle] and we had three DPs,” said Tanner.

“[Julián] Carranza was aging out of the young DP and was a full DP. So that means we had only the possibility to sign a young DP and nothing else. So we were basically forced to go ahead with what we have and bringing back [Kai] Wagner and bringing back Ale Bedoya also contributed to that situation.”

Conclusion

Just because the Union traded away an International Roster Slot, doesn’t mean that the club won’t make anymore signings. In the same episode of ‘The Doop’, Ernst Tanner said, “Yeah, there will be definitely another player coming in.” And with the Union still hanging onto one more International Roster Slot, would anyone be surprised if the player Tanner is talking about is an International player? It’s still not time to panic for Union fans as the transfer window doesn’t close until Wednesday, August 14, which leaves the Union with 12 more days to make moves.