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Legendary Seattle Sounders manager Sigi Schmid parted ways with the club on Tuesday. The official release from the club says the two parties “mutually agreed” to this decision. While it’s certainly possible that happened, according to Charles Boehm of Soccer Wire, there was massive unrest in the locker room and U.S. international Clint Dempsey was near the top of the list of unhappy players.
Boehm’s source told him that the situation got so bad that Dempsey completely avoided communicating with Schmid and would only speak with two members of the club’s staff instead. 2017 will be the final year of his contract with Seattle and according to the report, he’s ready to leave.
Dempsey is approaching the final year of his contract and fell out with Schmid some time ago. One source said that Dempsey has made clear that he’s eyeing the exit
That was the climate in Seattle during Sigi Schmid’s reign. Will Dempsey change his attitude now that a change has been made? Who knows? Deuce’s move to MLS hasn’t exactly been the momentous, league-defining transfer everyone hoped it would have been. It hasn’t been a disaster, at least from a statistical standpoint, maybe it has been on the internal side if these reports are accurate.
So, what would be the next move for Dempsey if he remains disgruntled in Seattle? It’s hard to envision a scenario in which he’s moved before his contract expires after next season. His salary is just way too high for many MLS clubs to take on and he’s not going to go back to Europe and take a fraction of the money either. He appears to be stuck in Seattle until his contract is up.
A lot can happen in a year and a half. The new manager could win Dempsey back over and straighten out the locker room problems. Or the situation could continue to get worse and then who knows what would happen? The situation was apparently intolerable with Schmid at the helm. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with a new regime coming in.