Na­tion­al un­der-20 de­fend­er Damani Richards ar­rived in Philadel­phia on Wednes­day to join Amer­i­can Ma­jor League Soc­cer club Philadel­phia Union on a one-year con­tract ahead of the up­com­ing MLS sea­son.

Richards, a mem­ber of the T&T Un­der-20 team which par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Caribbean zone of the Youth World Cup qual­i­fiers last year, and past Trin­i­ty Col­lege de­fend­er, was on a ten-day tri­al at Union in Oc­to­ber and played in a re­serve game against DC Unit­ed.

US-based FI­FA play­er agent An­dre For­tune, who took So­ca War­riors mid­field­er Keon Daniel to Philadel­phia, dis­closed that Richards will join the team for the up­com­ing sea­son on the one year deal with the op­tion for a fur­ther two years.

Richards ex­pressed grat­i­tude to his for­mer club W Con­nec­tion as well as na­tion­al un­der-17 and un­der-20 team coach­es and T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor An­ton Corneal for their sup­port.

"I am very thank­ful for my time with W-Con­nec­tion and the plat­form that they pro­vid­ed me. I would al­so like to ex­press my ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the T&TFF and the coach­es who worked with me, in­clud­ing Mr An­ton Corneal, the tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor, for the op­por­tu­ni­ty and the priv­i­lege that I had to rep­re­sent my coun­try at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.

"I am look­ing for­ward to mak­ing full use of this op­por­tu­ni­ty and bet­ter my un­der­stand­ing of the game and my readi­ness for a high­er lev­el on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage," the 18-year-old from Co­corite, St James, said.

Richards joins Daniel at Union as well as right back Sheanon Williams who has played for the US at youth lev­el but is al­so el­i­gi­ble to play for T&T.

Richards will join the team for their pre-sea­son train­ing which in­cludes a fix­ture against Mon­tre­al Im­pact on Feb­ru­ary 15.

The Union will al­so be tak­ing part in the Dis­ney­world Pro Soc­cer Clas­sic in Or­lan­do, and are due to face Or­lan­do City, the Colum­bus Crew and Toron­to FC, along with Mon­tre­al, all with­in the same week while it kicks off the MLS sea­son on March 2 against Sport­ing Kansas City.

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