Argentine playmaker Guillermo Barros Schelotto will return for another season with the Columbus Crew and could be the team's first designated player, reports Shawn Mitchell, quoting "a source close to both Schelotto and the team."

Mitchell writes that team owner Hunt Sports Group is willing to make the 35-year-old league MVP a designated player, "which it might have to do to pay him the approximately $600,000 salary his 2009 contract option calls for." Although Schelotto said Sunday that HSG did not want to make him a designated player, both investor-operator Clark Hunt and GM Mark McCullers said it's one of two options the team will present Schelotto Wednesday. His contract option must be exercised by Sunday.

"We're not yet at the point of determining which path we'll go down, but I'm confident [Schelotto] will be back," said McCullers. Hunt said that "when you have a championship team, the key is keeping that team together."

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