Every Columbus Crew player's official salary in 2022

The MLS Players Association, bless their incredibly helpful souls, have published their regular list of each player's salary for the 2022 season – listing base salaries and guaranteed money, including every Columbus Crew contract.

We're going to work on guaranteed compensation for this list because...well, that's how much money the team's committed to the players and the squad. That's just common sense, isn't it?

These salaries are all correct as of 15 April, the date that collection stopped before this week's release of the numbers.

The Crew have the 10th highest overall salary number of the 28 teams in MLS, although a couple of those teams have signed players to new/improved contracts since the 15 April deadline for inclusion.

Columbus Crew are spending $14.98m on player salaries in 2022

One of the unusual things worth noting is that, since Gyasi Zardes and his $1.5m base salary was traded to Colorado, the Crew are spending just $204,000 on forwards this year. That is, unsurprisingly, the cheapest position group of any club in MLS, taking up less than 1.5% of their total wage bill.

Put another way, there are 15 individuals in the squad earning more than the club's forwards put together. You might think that would mean that there's a lack of goals in the team but, as it turns out, that's not been too much of an issue. The Crew aren't at the top of the scoring charts by any means, but their 15 goals from 11 games is more or less exactly at league average, putting them 14th in all of MLS. In Zardes' 203 minutes before his trade, he provided just one of them.

The club's highest earner, Lucas Zelarayan, is earning his money in a goalscoring role behind nominal first choice striker Miguel Berry, chipping in with four goals and an assist to go with Derrick Etienne's three goals and four assists from the left wing.

1. Goalkeepers

Eloy Room – $883,000

Patrick Schulte – $96,431

Brady Scott – $84,000

Evan Bush – $84,000

2. Defenders

Jonathan Mensah – $1,140,667

Milos Degenek – $812,000

Pedro Santos – $687,500

Steven Moreira – $632,708

Josh Williams – $325,000

Jalil Anibaba – $150,000

Will Sands – $90,250

Jake Morris – $65,500

3. Midfielders

Lucas Zelarayan – $3,700,000

Darlington Nagbe – $1,760,000

Kevin Molino – $700,348

Yaw Yeboah – $663,750

Artur – $615,633

Alexandru Matan – $458,250

Luis Diaz – $408,900

James Ikbekeme – $408,281

Perry Kitchen – $326,667

Derrick Etienne – $175,000

Marlon Hairston – $175,000

Aidan Morris – $172,000

4. Forwards

Miguel Berry – $120,000

Erik Hurtado – $84,000