Aigner Released

You know yesterday when I said I wasn't sure how much I'd write but I'd cover news?  Well, we have news.  The Rapids announced today that the club and Stefan Aigner had agreed to a mutual termination of his contract, effective immediately.

This brings to an end the issues with Aigner which, as more and more stories leak out, appear to have been caused as much by him as Hudson.  Players were calling Aigner out for his lack of effort, he reportedly had multiple run-ins with Hudson, and generally never appeared to do anything this season but pick up a paycheck.  I'm sure as time goes by we'll hear more from both sides but whatever happened, it was bad and the faster the Rapids could move on the better.

MLS rules don't allow salary relief for a contract terminated mid-season.  Whatever buyout was agreed on still hits our cap for this year.  We do remove Aigner's cap hit in 2019 and 2020 with this move though.  Aigner was due around $2 million through 2020 and I can't see him giving that up for free just to get out of the contract.  Unless he already has a new deal lined up somewhere I assume he got something for agreeing to leave early, but obviously not the full $2 million.  Whatever that is will still hit our cap this year.

So as far as this season goes, barring any future info, all we really get back is an open roster spot.  Since Aigner got his green card in the offseason this doesn't even free up an international spot.  It does remove a problem in the locker room though and lets everyone move on, so in the end it was the right move.