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Sporting KC’s Contract Situations at the End of the 2022 Season

Who is signed and for how long as the team heads into the offseason?

MLS: Sporting Kansas City at FC Dallas Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

With the 2022 Major League Soccer regular season having come to an end on Sunday, 14 of the league’s 28 teams turn their attention to 2023 while the remaining 14 battle for the MLS Cup.

Unfortunately, Sporting Kansas City find themselves on the outside looking in. They aren’t alone as they are joined by 2022 CONCACAF Champion League winners the Seattle Sounders, the 2021 MLS Cup winning New England Revolution, the 2021 MLS Cup runners up Portland Timbers, by far the league’s most expensive roster in Toronto FC and the inventors of soccer, Atlanta United. Interesting company.

While not much has changed since the last time we looked at the roster, it seems like a good bench post to mark the end of the season before a potential furry of offseason moves and rumors commence. There is only one change since we last updated this list in August. Daniel Salloi signed a new contract through the end of the 2026 season and he’ll avoid free agency.

Out of Contract

The following players are out of contract following the season. That means they either will be eligible for free agency or required to go through one of the many MLS roster allocation processes, like the Re-Entry Draft. Free agency is looser in 2023 with players now needing to be only 24-years-old and have five years of MLS service, versus 28/8 before.

One other note on players out of contract is they can sign contracts in other leagues as of right now. They just have to be six-months away from being out of contract and we’ve long past that point.

Expiring Deals: Tim Melia, Roger Espinoza, Andreu Fontas, Felipe Hernandez

Contract Options

These players are not as free as the above players as they have team-held contract options for at least the 2023 season. What that means is the team can choose to decline their option(s) at any point and then they would disperse to one of the aforementioned allocation options (or go abroad). Typically these announcements come quickly after the season, but it appears teams have until November 14th this year.

TL;DR — These are deals the team can get out of if they wish to move on.

2023 Option Only: Graham Zusi, Cam Duke, Khiry Shelton, Kendall McIntosh, Nicolas Isimat-Mirin

2023 & 2024 Option: Kaveh Rad, Kortne Ford


That leaves 11 players that can be easily moved on from at any moment. The Blue Testament will break this down further tomorrow in terms of money and roster designations (DPs, internationals, U-22, etc.).

Until then, here are all 27 players on the roster as of today, including their ages based on a published date of October 11th.

Sporting KC Roster at the End of the 2022 Season

Player Position Status Joined Age Expiration Options
Player Position Status Joined Age Expiration Options
Graham Zusi RB - 1/15/2009 36 2022 2023
Tim Melia GK - 12/23/2014 36 2022 None
Roger Espinoza MID - 1/6/2015 35 2022 None
Daniel Salloi LW HG 1/13/2016 26 2026 None
Johnny Russell RW DP 1/31/2018 32 2023 2024
Andreu Fontas CB INT 8/8/2018 32 2022 None
Cameron Duke MID HG 7/18/2019 21 2022 2023
Felipe Hernandez MID HG 8/30/2019 24 2022 None
Khiry Shelton FWD - 12/9/2019 29 2022 2023
Alan Pulido CF DP 12/10/2019 31 2023 None
Ozzie Cisneros MID HG 1/20/2020 18 2024 2025
Gadi Kinda MID INT-DP 1/23/2020 28 2023 None
John Pulskamp GK HG 2/24/2020 21 2025 2026
Kendall McIntosh GK - 12/12/2020 28 2022 2023
Remi Walter MID - 12/22/2020 27 2023 2024
Nicolas Isimat-Mirin CB INT 2/3/2021 30 2022 2023
Kaveh Rad CB HG 4/5/2021 21 2022 2023, 2024
Kayden Pierre RB HG 5/4/2021 19 2024 2025
Jake Davis MID HG 8/19/2021 20 2023 2024
Ben Sweat LB - 12/20/2021 31 2023 2024
Uri Rosell MID - 12/21/21 30 2023 2024
Kortne Ford CB - 1/14/22 26 2022 2023, 2024
Logan Ndembe LB INT-U22 1/14/22 22 2024 2025
Robert Voloder CB INT-U22 1/19/22 21 2024 2025
Marinos Tzionis FWD INT-U22 1/24/22 21 2024 2025
William Agada CF INT 6/23/22 23 2023 2024, 2025
Erik Thommy MID INT 6/23/22 28 2024 2025
*Gadi Kinda probably isn’t a DP anymore going into next season, but we’ll wait for something more official and he is as of today.