Sporting KC
Sporting KC Keep Only Four of their 17 Out of Contract Players
Sporting Kansas City announces end-of-season roster decisions. Only twelve players left on roster ahead of the offseason,
With the 2025 season over and Sporting Kansas City looking to make major changes for the 2026 season, they announced their end-of-season roster moves. The newly hired President of Soccer Operations will have a large number of moves to make for next year and cleared roster and cap space across the board. With a possibility of seventeen players leaving, only four are returning for sure and two still in negotiations.
Sporting KC exercised 2026 contract options on four players: Stephen Afrifa, Zorhan Bassong, Jansen Miller and John Pulskamp and declined options for Tim Leibold, Nemanja Radoja, Ryan Schewe, Khiry Shelton, and Mason Toye. The loans for Alan Montes and Santi Munoz have ended but SKC is negotiating with Schewe and Munoz.
Six players are out of contract and will not be returning: Andrew Brody, Joaquin Fernandez, Logan Ndenbe, Memo Rodriguez, Erik Thommy and Robert Voloder.
Eight players had guaranteed contracts for 2026 with Sporting Kansas City: Jacob Bartlett, Jake Davis, Manu Garcia, Ian James, Dejan Joveljic, Jack Kortkamp, Daniel Salloi and Shapi Suleymanov.
Sporting KC has 12 players under contract for the 2026 season:
- Goalkeepers (2):Â Jack Kortkamp, John Pulskamp
- Defenders (2):Â Ian James, Jansen Miller
- Midfielders (4):Â Jacob Bartlett, Zorhan Bassong, Jake Davis, Manu Garcia
- Forwards (4):Â Stephen Afrifa, Dejan Joveljic, Daniel Salloi, Shapi Suleymanov
Sporting’s roster will continue to take shape in the buildup to the 2026 MLS campaign. 2025-26 MLS Offseason Events and Roster Mechanisms
- Wednesday, Dec. 10 – Saturday, Dec. 13: MLS College Showcase
- Wednesday, Dec. 10: Free Agency opens (12 p.m. CT)
- Thursday, Dec. 11: Re-Entry Process, Stage 1 (12 p.m. CT)
- Thursday, Dec. 11: End-of-Year Waivers (4 p.m. CT)
- Wednesday, Dec. 17: Re-Entry Process, Stage 2 (4 p.m. CT)
- Thursday, Dec. 18: 2026 MLS SuperDraft
With just twelve players under contract for Sporting KC, David Lee has his work cut out for him. Lee will be building the roster, hiring a head coach, creating the analytics department and hiring more people for the scouting department. Add in Sporting KC II and Academy and Lee will be a very busy individual.
What are your thoughts on these roster moves?
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Thommy is surprising for his past track record but once I realize he disappeared this year and has struggled with injuries, it’s not as surprising as I first read. Ndenbe still is surprising to me, maybe I’m still caught up on the St. Louis playoff high but I thought for sure he’d be one to stick around.
Logan Ndenbe leaving is a bit of a shock.
Voloder leaving is a little surprising, but must just mean he felt he could get paid more elsewhere. Fair enough.
Thommy leaving is a small eyebrow raiser, but doesnt surprise me. We paid him a lot of money to play part-time.
Afrifa returning is quite surprising.
I felt like the rest were pretty sure bets.
Going into the offseason with no back line, though, is massively scary. LB1 and LB2 gone and the guy who played the most at RB is gone (I refuse to say Shelton was an RB. He just wasnt a right back. Ever.). Our roster currently has 2 dudes that can play outside back listed as Midfielders. No actual outside backs on the roster. Half of our most effective CB pairing is gone so i really hope James is ready for at least CB3 duty.
Great opportunity, but what a daunting task.
It seems that every decision was directly related to their salary in comparison of quality of pay. Afrifa is cheep for the 3rd tier forward. Anyone who can score a couple of goals that is cheep will have some value to the salary cap league. Maybe they have a couple of players in the pipeline like Bartlett who have the ability to come in and contribute. The older guys in the pipeline that went to college include Dylan Hooper (I’m pretty certain he had a YNT call-up) who has had some injuries but quality play, Nati Clarke (lots of YNT call-ups and an excellent outside back) who seems to have been spinning his wheels with the 2nd team for long enough, Jayvin Van Deventer (U20 YNT call-up) has low minutes in college so maybe there is something to that but has looked real good the couple of times I’ve seen him play in college, Jack Lucus who exploded onto the college higher echelons at the start of this season, and Cooper Forcellini who is being ranked top 30 college player by Top Drawer but had left the Academy a couple of years before he went off to college.
Nice run down of Academy guys in college. They need to sign a ton of players, so they’ll have to turn over every rock.
The only move that really surprises me is not exercising the option on Toye. I thought he was relatively cheap for a backup striker and had a nice alternative skill set to Dejan.
Makes me think they really think they can get Santi back. Toye at times was clearly down in the pecking order when he didn’t get much playing time until later in the season when they were using Santi on the wing due to injuries. Clearly that wasn’t santis spot so I’d have to think they would rather pay Santi and find a cheaper 3.
Maybe we are getting past the cheap is good stage and will actually put a good side together for next year.
I’m starting to get excited. I just want to know who the manager will be.
Miller and James are hopefully depth CBs and not starters. We are looking at an entirely new back 4 (or 3?) and I would think at least 1 attacking mid, maybe 2. That is a lot to sync up to upgrade the worst defensive 5-6 in the league. Also need at least one winger to put in crosses/opportunities (Shapi has to be a sub). Would love to stay away from Schewe (not that he is bad, just need more senior competition than the current 3 keepers). There are some depth players in the current 12 (13 with Santi), but I only see 3-4 lockdown starters right now. That’s a lot of new starters to integrate and determine depth/rotations. Exciting, but nerve-wracking. Coach hire is HUGE.
I wanted them to let go of 10+ players, but wasn’t confident in that given our past track record. This certainly marks the beginning of a new era for Sporting. I’m slightly disappointed about Ndenbe, but understand given his pay and injury history. Toye was surprising too, but like someone else said, maybe that means they think they can get Santi.
Overall, I’m very happy with these moves and am excited to see what David Lee does next. I know we’ve already shipped out a lot, but if he was able to sell Shapi so we could upgrade at that spot without carrying Shapi’s salary as a back up, I think that would really excite me. He definitely has a huge task ahead of him, but now he’s going all in. You don’t cut that many players without having a clear plan and confidence in what you’re doing.
This is where I’m at. We often talk about the need of heavy turnover and for once the team got it.
No one was brought back that absolutely shouldn’t be here. (Afrifa was a surprise, but he’s cheap and maybe Lee see something, it’s super low risk).
With the past regime they’d make a move to stun us, like re-signing Shelton. If PV was making the calls, no one would be too stunned if Shelton were still here. Or Leibold. Or Radoja. They are all guys who should be gone and are.
Lee has a lot of work ahead of him and it likely won’t mean they are going to get it all done before next season starts, but I’m optimistic.
Salloi remains. Cool. One more year without going to a game. It’s nice to see Son in LA, Mueller in Vancouver. Messi in Miami through 28 now. We have dp Dan Salloi, look out man. Lmao.
10 goals 6 assists in the last two seasons combined. 2.6 million dollars for 10 goals and 6 assist. I’ll believe your serious about winning when he’s gone. Until then it’s reshuffle the deck and keep the gates moving.
62 shots taken this year, 35 off target, 27 on target. 3 assist this year with only 3.96xa. A dp winger that neither sets up a striker to score, nor does many smart things with the ball is grossly overpaid. Why is he taking so many shots that can’t even find that huge goal frame? Hit the post only one time all season as well. They were bad misses.
I think he would of been gone had he not been under contract. He does need to go. Imagine Dejan with 2 good wingers!!!
I’d agree with Joe below, if his contract was up, he may be gone too. But his contract wasn’t. There are only 12 guys on the roster. Give David Lee time. Boycotting the team because of an old bad contract seems silly. There is massive change coming. There literally has to be.
Also, Salloi isn’t now and has never been a DP. Technically, at $1.3m he could be a DP in name only type guy but not classifying him as a DP gives you $2m in GAM, so they won’t do that. Manu and Dejan are the only DPs and from Thursday’s presser, likely will continue to be at least until the summer (if they ever add a 3rd).
what a weird hill to die on.
I think that’s a good idea I think you should call Johan Ortiz to the first team
I have to think some SKC II, Academy kids and/or former academy players in college are going to get a chance simply because signing 15ish guys is a mountain of work.