Washington Spirit announce end-of-season roster moves

The Washington Spirit announced their roster decisions following the end of a tumultuous season that ended with the club’s first NWSL championship. The Spirit exercised contract options on Camryn Biegalski, Devon Kerr, and Karina Rodríguez, while the team opted to waive Chinyelu Asher, Cali Farquharson, and Mariana Speckmaier.

The Spirit’s announcements today also noted that the team has extended new contract offers to Taylor Aylmer and Morgan Goff, both of whom had signed earlier this year on deals that expired at the end of the season.

Washington ended up with a relatively low number of decisions to make this offseason, as 20 players entered the offseason with deals that were set to run through at least the end of the 2022 season. Emily Sonnett and Andi Sullivan were USSF allocated players this season, but had already agreed to two-year contracts with the Spirit (rather than the federation) that will begin in 2022. With the entire federation player system’s status unclear, Kelley O’Hara remains on the Spirit roster under that designation, a sign that there may be at least one more year of players being under contract with U.S. Soccer.

Asher was initially signed on a national team replacement deal during the Challenge Cup, but ended up on the roster for the entire season. Across all competitions, she appeared three times (including one start) while being active in the Spirit’s community outreach efforts. Farquharson was similarly signed to a national team replacement contract, and did continue training with the Spirit after that deal ended, but ended up with no appearances this year. Speckmaier, who very recently scored her first international goal for Venezuela, finished her rookie year with three appearances. All three have been waived, meaning that other clubs around NWSL will have the chance to obtain their contract rights within the league during the upcoming Re-Entry Wire.

Today’s moves leave the Spirit with 23 players under contract. With Aylmer and Goff in talks with the team over deals for next season, the current roster is as follows:

(note: all contract lengths based on team announcements and B&RU reporting)