Jaedyn Shaw, a highly-touted member of the U.S. under-20 national team who has spent a significant portion of 2022 training with the Washington Spirit, will be allowed to sign with an NWSL club without having to go through the College Draft.
However, in a statement Thursday, the league said that Shaw will have to go through the NWSL discovery process, a mechanism that exists for the league to maintain parity, and that has been used as an exemption to its minimum age requirement in the recent past. The discovery process for Shaw will be held on July 7.
Shaw, like Portland Thorns midfielder Olivia Moultrie, would normally have had to wait until the next College Draft after her 18th birthday, which comes in November. With Shaw looking to sign a professional deal quickly, the NWSL cited its ability “to amend its rules in its discretion,” instituting a one-off Discovery Process to sort out what club has league priority to sign the attacker.
“For a variety of reasons, including the fact that Shaw will turn 18 in November 2022 and has already taken the necessary steps to turn professional and forgo her NCAA eligibility, the NWSL has exercised its authority and amended its entry process to allow NWSL teams to select Shaw through the discovery process,” read the league’s statement on the matter.
The statement further said that any team that wants to be involved in the discovery process must spell out its plans in terms of “how they would comply with the safeguarding rules related to minors until Shaw turns 18” in order to participate.
“I have spent the first two months of my tenure as commissioner of the NWSL reviewing all of our policies and procedures to ensure our league is set up for success, now and in the future,” said NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman in the statement. “This is a special circumstance that I believe requires us to show flexibility in how we execute our policies, and as a practical matter, is part of our ongoing review of our age restriction policy. In the interim, we have determined that our best course of action is to allow Jaedyn Shaw to join the NWSL as part of this discovery process.”
NWSL maintained that its age restriction policy is still intact, with requests for exemptions to it to be “reviewed on a case-by-case basis.”
Shaw, a standout from Texas youth club Solar SC, joined the Spirit in the preseason and trained with the team from early February through at least the end of March. One source with knowledge of how those sessions went told Pro Soccer Wire that she drew at least some comparisons to USWNT star and 2021 NWSL Rookie of the Year Trinity Rodman.
Washington head coach Kris Ward had spoken a handful of times throughout the spring about the club’s ambitions to work with NWSL on a pathway for them to sign Shaw directly, rather than going through a normal player acquisition mechanism.
That was a different prospect than how a situation like this played out the last time a minor pushed to join an NWSL club. Moultrie ended up bringing a suit against the NWSL on anti-trust grounds to push for the chance to play in the league, with the outcome eventually being a discovery process that saw OL Reign acquire Moultrie’s NWSL playing rights and then trade them to Portland. Moultrie has since become a regular part of Portland’s rotation, making 19 appearances in all competitions for the Thorns since signing her contract in June.
Speaking today to reporters, Ward said that even though the push for a different method in these cases didn’t succeed, the Spirit would still be interested in signing Shaw via the discovery process.
“We’ll have to, I guess not adjust the strategy, but roll with the parameters that they have played out, and see if we can work something out,” said Ward. “We obviously think that she’s talented, and we would like for something to work out, but it’s not always that simple. And so, we’re just gonna have to start to have those conversations, now that we have this news, and see what is out there to be able to accomplish.”
The Spirit and NWSL have had their conflicts in the recent past, but Ward said that while these discussions didn’t go the way he’d have preferred, he didn’t feel the league approached Washington’s position in an adversarial manner.
“I don’t think that (NWSL) were difficult, or…obtuse in any way,” said Ward. “It’s their understanding that the landscape is changing and shifting.”
Ward characterized the NWSL’s perspective as wanting “to make sure that the process was carefully thought out, and that it was fair, because American sports is all about equality, or trying to create a level playing field for teams, whether or not that actually exists. It’s not an enviable position to be in for them, to say ‘okay, we’re now having to face this new reality.'”
“I think they just needed to make sure that logistically, legally, process-wise, all that kind of stuff, that they had put together something that was reasonable and allowed for draft order and things like that,” added Ward.
While he couldn’t make direct comparisons to how things played out with Moultrie, Ward felt that the league must prepare a process for more talented youngsters to come to a point where they’re choosing between staying in the NWSL or looking to European clubs.
“Jaedyn is not alone in this situation of being a minor who is looking to play professionally. I know that there’s a handful of kids around the league with different teams,” said Ward. “The day for Jaedyn is obviously here, but the day for those people who are now coming after her, it’s not going to be a 10-year gap. It’s not going to be a 10-month gap. Those players, they’re out there. They’re nearby… How does the league go through and start to create a template for that, so they can address these other situations as they arise? Because, it’s coming.”
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