Sporting Kansas City appear to have again taken advantage of another dimension of the homegrown player rule to acquire the rights to U.S. U17 star Josh Sargent.
According to a report in Goal, Sporting Kansas City put in a homegrown claim on the St. Louis native last summer and since he is from within their geographic territory and there wasn’t “enough strong interest in the player from other teams in the league” the claim was approved.
While typically a player is required to play for a team’s academy for at least a year to be eligible to sign as a homegrown player, Sargent isn’t the first player to not meet what you’ll often hear referred to as a minimum standard.