Reggie Cannon became the latest MLS homegrown to embark back to the United States.
The Colorado Rapids signed Cannon to a three-and-a-half-year contract through the 2027 season, with a club option for an additional year. Cannon mutually parted ways with English Football League Championship side QPR earlier this month, ending a one-year stay in London.
The 26-year-old Cannon made 21 appearances for QPR, helping them secure five clean sheets.
Prior to his move to England, Cannon spent three seasons with Portuguese club Boavista, logging 89 appearances. He left the club in the Summer of 2023 due to reported unpaid wages.
“We are thrilled to add a player of Reggie’s caliber to our group,” said Colorado Rapids President Pádraig Smith. “Reggie is a player with fantastic experience, having competed at the highest levels domestically and internationally. His athleticism, defensive qualities and tactical awareness strengthens our backline while his versatility provides additional flexibility in our lineup. We’re excited to have him contribute to the success of the team and help us continue building a MLS Cup contending squad.”
Cannon broke onto the scene with FC Dallas, playing for the MLS side from 2017-20.
On the international level, Cannon has earned 28 caps with the U.S. men’s national team but hasn’t featured since 2022.
He becomes the latest USMNT player to make the move to Colorado, joining Djordje Mihailovic, Zack Steffen, and Sam Vines, all who joined within the last year.
good deal he’s back playing. the absurd irony of saying he owes a broke club money because he wasn’t stiffed long enough. did they still ever pay what he was owed or are we now pretending that’s offset on him owing his club? delightful.
i assume part of the delay is an owner willing to take the risk their club gets sued for signing him and try to put them on the hook for what cannon owes.
i agree with the poster about if boavista ever pops up their head over here trying to enforce their FIFA piece of paper. american court says, wait, they didn’t pay him and he comes out owing them money? that and did FCD and Houston (elis) ever get paid their transfer fees? in other words if they want their ~$1.5m from our guy they can pay ~$4.25m in unpaid fees to get it.
huzzah!
i also think the rule is dumb. one unpaid check should be enough to leave and they also owe you that month. after two unpaid checks not only can you leave but they should owe the full deal.
i get FIFA bigwigs can justify it to themselves as a wealthy player could save a paycheck and live off it a while. but this presumably is the rule for even some little guy in the english league two or national league, barely full professional, low 5 figure wages. they don’t get paid they can’t afford rent or food.
i assume we’re trying to hide the fact in certain parts of europe and south america this probably happens often.
Nice……Now Colorado has Djordje Mihailovic, Sam Vines, Zack Steffen and REGGIE CANNON…….They are definitely a team worth watching on a weekly basis. Love it!!!!!
Europe did this guy wrong. I watched the interview of that Portuguese Club antics of what they did. If I was a a lawyer, I would rep him probono. They should be paying Cannon. Not his fault the club was doing weird business, and messed up their finance, where they could not pay players. Then they had the nerve to ask him to pay back, when they were wrong. That put a burden on him and his family. Glad he is back in the states.
I’ve commented on this earlier but Cannon’s moving back to the US was probably a tactical legal move…getting a US court to enforce a Portuguese ruling that on the face of it is just plain bizarre is likely going to be a bit of a trick for Boavista, mostly because Cannon can almost without question demonstrate pretty readily that Boavista was in breach of contract. In the US, particularly in regard to paychecks, if an employer fails to pay wages for a certain amount of time – usually seven to ten days, because, you know, people live on their paychecks – it means they’ve failed to “cure” the breach and the contract is nullified. (It can actually work against you if you stay, because it can be construed as tacit acceptance of non-payment.) The fact that this Portuguese court curiously ordered Boavista to pay Cannon $89K – after ordering Cannon to pay $1.4 million! – tells you there were still outstanding wages even more than a year after Cannon’s departure, which kind of blows way past that legal window to cure, at least here Stateside. Most US judges, I suspect, would raise their glasses and eyeball some lawyer trying to collect on Boavista’s behalf and go: “wait a sec here…you didn’t pay the man? And for how long? And you’re like, surprised the man left? And you want what now?”
I also suspect a ruling would take terribly long…or go terribly well for the plaintiffs. Unless there’s more to this story than is known, an American judge seems highly likely to tell Boavista exactly where they can stick it. Deservedly.
quozzel, nice comment thanks!