2026 Sporting KC Salaries Released

• Fall 2025
• Spring 2025
• Fall 2024
• Spring 2024
• Fall 2023
• Spring 2023

Some Quick Caveats

Everyone puts a lot of emphasis on the salary data, but it only tells part of the story. These numbers don’t include transfer fees. In 2025 Sporting Kansas City paid $4 million for Dejan Joveljic as the first cash transfer in MLS history. There is also a rumored combined $5 million fee for Manu Garcia and Shapi Suleymanov, but how much is allocated to each player is unknown. This season, they are rumored to have paid fees for Lasse Berg Johnsen, Diego Borges and Capita.

Without getting too deep into the weeds, there are a couple roster designations that add some context to these salaries. The team has two Designated Players (DPs) and had one U-22 Initiative Player (at the time of this data). In 2026, the DPs only count for $803,125 against the cap (no matter their salary or transfer fee) and the U-22 players only count for $200,000 (no matter their salary or transfer fee). Some U-22 players count for $150,000, but Sporting KC don’t have any of those. In 2027, that number for DPs will climb, as it’s always 12.5 percent of the salary budget, which also raises annually.

New Players

One of the most intriguing parts of the new salary release is always what the new signings are making. And Sporting KC have a ton of new players. The most notable guys are towards the top of the list with Lasse Berg Johnsen coming in as the 3rd highest paid player at $1,191,250 in guaranteed compensation.

Fifth on the list is Osvaldo “Capita” Capemba, clocking in at $658,720. The ninth highest paid player is new addition Calvin Harris, who is coming over from the Colorado Rapids and now making $375,000. He’s followed by Diego Borges, who is showing at $330,000, but as a U22 player, will only count for $200,000 on the budget.

New starting goalkeeper Stefan Cleveland is 11th at $237,000 with new CB Ethan Bartlow right behind him, but with a bit of a gap, at $142,637. Everyone else is at or near either the senior or reserve minimum.

• #13 – Justin Reynolds – $123,400
• #15 – Jayden Reid – $116,655
• #16 – Wyatt Meyer – $116,550
• #18 – Taylor Calheira – $100,824
• #22  – Kwaku Agyabeng – $88,858
• #23 (tied) – Cielo Tschantret – $88,025

Current Players with Higher Salaries

Another area to focus on is “who got a raise?” But raise isn’t the right word all the time. Often, players have an existing contract with built in increases. So, it’s not as though their performance earned them a raise, they simply pre-negotiated an increase. Then again, there could be performance escalators too.

Another option is existing players on new contracts. Zorhan Bassong falls into this category it would seem. He signed an extension and took a significant leap up to $540,833, which is a $426,596 increase over his 2025 pay.

The next largest change went to John Pulskamp, who jumped up $151,875 in the final year of his deal, bringing his salary to $425,375. He’s followed closely by Shapi Suleymanov who received a $150,000 increase to bring his compensation over $1 million to $1,065,028 in the final year of his guaranteed deal.

Manu Garcia received a $100k increase up to $2,425,313. All the other bumps were more modest with Ian James getting an additional $32,778, which does account for 27.7 percent of his salary. Jake Davis saw a bump of $25k, which only account for 5.7 percent of his total salary.

All the other increases are guys (Afrifa, Bartlett, Kortkamp, Miller, Schewe) on one form of minimum deal or another climbing as the minimum climbs.

Sporting KC’s Salaries

Here are the full salaries, along with the position as assigned by the MLSPA.