Record-setting forward Matthew Delicate may have played his last match as a Richmond Kicker.
Delicate, a 31-year-old English import who is the Kickers’ career leader in goals (71) and points (161), says he has informed club management the 2013 season was his last in Richmond.
He intends to test the market as a free agent and says he anticipates “several offers” from other USL PRO clubs. Should those prove unsatisfactory, he said, he is prepared to “settle down,” perhaps in Richmond, and turn his attention to a life beyond competitive soccer.
Kickers coach Leigh Cowlishaw acknowledged several USL PRO clubs “can pay considerably more” in player salaries than can the Kickers.
Delicate contributed six goals and an assist to the Kickers’ run to the 2013 USL PRO regular-season championship. He said he was bothered by the tone and length of last year’s discussions, which were extended into the first week of the regular season by his lengthy recuperation from a groin injury. In addition, he said he “was not particularly pleased” by the terms of last year’s one-season deal.
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Talks regarding 2014, he said, seem already to be settling into a “wait and see” pattern.
“I just don’t want to sit and play the same waiting game this offseason,” said Delicate, who has spent seven of his 10 professional seasons in Richmond. “I’d like to have something settled, one way or another, within the next month. I don’t want this to carry on for months. I certainly don’t want it to carry over into 2014.”
Cowlishaw said the task of assembling USL PRO rosters has been complicated by clubs’ player-development relationships with MLS organizations. The Kickers have established such a relationship with D.C. United.
The process of building a team, Cowlishaw said, cannot begin until the parent club identifies the young talent it wishes to loan on a regular basis to its USL PRO partner. It is the responsibility of the USL PRO club’s management “to try to find the proper complements for that group.”
Cowlishaw said it is essential, from a competitive and financial standpoint, duplication of skills be avoided.
Cowlishaw said the Kickers have thus far extended no free agent contract offers for 2014.
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