Angel City suffers harsh penalties for salary cap violations

Angel City’s drive to return to the playoffs has taken a major hit.

On Thursday, Angel City were hit with sanctions by NWSL for salary cap violations, such as a $200,000 fine and the suspensions for the remainder of 2024 of two important executives. However, the harshest of the penalties were the deduction of three points from its current point total.

The loss of those three points is a major blow to Angel City’s hopes of making back-to-back playoff appearances. Prior to the penalties, Angel City was in 11th place at 22 points, three points back of Bay FC, the team currently occupying the eight and final NWSL Playoff spot. Now the team slips back one spot to 12th place at 19 points, meaning there is literally no room for error for Angel City with four matches left to play.

The penalties came after the league found that the team had entered into “side letters,” meaning an agreement outside the standard contract a team can offer to a player, with five players in 2023 that were not disclosed by the team. According the league, the agreements included “a combination of compensation and benefits that were reflected in the Standard Player Agreement and excess benefits that were neither reported to the league nor included in the Standard Player Agreement” per the league’s statement on the matter. As a result of these compensations, Angel City exceeded the salary cap by $50,000 for four weeks during this season.

Also, in addition to the fine and the points loss, CEO Julie Uhrman and team president Angela Hucles Mangano have been suspended from all player transaction-related activities for the remainder of the 2024 calendar year.