Top 10 MLS Salaries in 2007

By: Bob | May 4th, 2007

It is always fun to see how much money professional athletes make. That is especially the case when it comes to Major League Soccer where many of the players make what can best be described as a very humble living playing soccer. Luis Arroyave of the excellent Red Card blog points us in the direction of the MLS Players Union Web site, which kindly lists all of the salaries for the players in the league.

Leading the way in 2007 is David Beckham. No surprise there. He will earn $6.5 million to play about half a season for the LA Galaxy. In another galaxy, players making the league minimum will earn $12,900 this season. You could do better pouring Slurpies all day. What a disgrace.

Going through the list, here are the top 10 salaries I could find. My eyes might have glossed over a player or two so let me know if I missed someone.

Top 10 MLS Salaries in 2007

1. David Beckham, LA Galaxy, $6.5 million
2. Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Chicago Fire, $2.7 million
3. Juan Pablo Angel, New York Red Bulls, $1.6 million
4. Claudio Reyna, New York Red Bulls, $1.25
4. Landon Donovan, LA Galaxy, $900,000
5. Eddie Johnson, Kansas City Wizards, $875,000
6. Freddy Adu, Real Salt Lake, $550,000
7. Carlos Ruiz, FC Dallas, $435,000
8. Clint Mathis, New York Red Bulls, $410,000
9. Taylor Twellmen, New England Revolution, $350,000
10. Twellman, Taylor NE $350,008 (Edit: I missed Twellman on the first look)
11. Carl Robinson, Toronto FC, $315,000

You can see that there have been a lot of changes since the 2006 list.

1. Juan Francisco Palencia, Chivas USA, $1,360,000
2. Landon Donovan, Los Angeles, $900,000
3. Eddie Johnson, Kansas City, $875,000
4. Juan Pablo Garcia, Chivas USA, $624,260
5. Freddy Adu, D.C. United, $550,000
6. Josh Wolff, Kansas City, $420,357
7. Clint Mathis, Colorado, $410,000
8. Eddie Pope, Real Salt Lake, $394,688
9. Tony Sanneh, Chicago, $365,000
10. Carlos Ruiz, FC Dallas, $360,00

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Category: MLS, World Football

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Brendan

Charles | February 12th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
cornercorner

FYI Basketball was invented in Canada!

No, Basketball was invented by a Canadian man in Springfield, Massachusetts (at least according to Dr.James Naismith, the inventor of Basketball, it was in Massachusetts).
Charles

FYI Basketball was invented in Canada!
chuks

AMERICANS REALLY AMAZE ME, EVERYTHING THE ENGLISH INVENTED THEY COPIED AND JUST CHANGED THE NAME TO SOCCER AND AMERICAN FOOTBALL. ANYWAY GREAT BRITAIN COLONISED THE UNITED STATES!
Jorge

The probelem is not the players on the top ten but the ones making under 20,000 a year. I dont even know how one could play for such little money, after all most of these guys are grown man with families. The disparity is too big.
Luc

Roger,

Goddamn I hate American Wrestling. Also, I remember once attending a Steelers game and trying to piss everyone off by calling it American Handball....ohhh good times...actually no, i got my ass kicked....handballers..
Roger

Papa Bear, you are full of shit! Only cool sport US ever invented is Basketball! American Football is obviously based on Rugby (with lots of paddings and insulations added on poor players so their sissy asses won't get scratched). Football is the game that's played with feet, not with hands! So, think twice (or more) who stole the damned name.
How about Wrestling! Real one is Olympic version (Free Style, Greco-Roman, Judo), which date back in BC-s and were always called Wrestling. US Wrestling is a "kids" version of staged crap and nothing more! I'm still amazed why any adult person would go to see the shit and actually buy what those actors are performing.
Zokinho

completely agree with julia...people that are countering her comment...ur arguments are pretty good but do u seriously think the MLS players wouldnt want to play in Europe if they could??maybe 99% of the players is a lil farfetched but 98% sure isnt...the way soccer is taught here in most places is not the right way
Marco

For anyone interested in player salaries elsewhere (for comparison's sake), I wrote an article about Salaries in the Italian Serie A soccer on mCalcio.com. The top earner there is unsurprisingly AC Milan's Kaká, with €6.0m (that's $8.8m), followed by Francesco Totti.
JRM

Let's not focus too much on the players at the top or the bottom of the salary pool. The fact is most of MLS's "average" veteran players make in the $60K, $70K, $80K range. These amounts are decent, middle class wages for most of the country especially for guys in their 20s and early 30s. I am a sports fan, but I do recognize the inequities of basketball, football, and baseball players making millions upon millions and nurses, teachers, etc. barely being able to get by. So I salute the fact that most MLS players aren't spoiled rich guys and instead make something similar to what I make.
YJ

"Oh God… Who said underpaid? lots of these people are overpaid! The “top” MLS players could never play in Europe…"

that's hilarious, where you do you think Juan Pablo Angel was playing before he landed in the MLS???
footyfan

actually the USA is the only country left in the world that refers to the sport as soccer...

"The move leaves USA as the only known country that still refers to the code as soccer"

http://nzsoccer.com/plugins/ne...
(obviously the haven't switched the domain name quite yet..)

and as far as rugby is concerned... look at the roots of the games beginning and that is understandable, but who seriously calls it rugby football these days anyway...

now... anyone want to get back on the topic of the article??
papa bear

Julia, 99% of players in the FMF,Brazilian or Argentine league could/would never play in Europe, many for lack of want to play in Europe.

Playing in Europe doesn't automatically make you the best of the best. (look at the world club championship and tell me who won)

It's called soccer because the ENGLISH invented the word as an abbreviation for ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL (ya know, the name of the game) calling it simply "football" is not much less silly considering the fact that Rugby is actually called RUGBY FOOTBALL.

And finally, the VAST majority of the English speaking world calls it soccer. USA, Australia, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand etc.

Don't think for a second of using the "well, the English invented it so call it what they call it" 'cause then you could argue that they should call "american" football simply "football" since we invented that as well.

As for the school of soccer (whatever that is) apparently isn't broken as the national team has done pretty well the last 17 years or so and many MLS teams have played wuite well against clubs from other "superior" leagues.
Julia

You are right Peter. Let me rephrase it: 99% of MLS players could never play in Europe… ever! The school of soccer (why the hell is it called soccer?) in the US is totally wrong.
Daryl

I actually choked when I saw Carl Robinson's name on that list. Not that he's a horrible player or anything, but surely Toronto could find a better way to spend $315k a year. Have any Toronto fans seen him in action this season? How's he playing?
Peter

You're right Julia. David Beckham, Juan Pablo Angel, and Cladio Reyna could never, ever play in Europe. Neither could Brian McBride, Clint Dempsey or Demarcus Beasley.
Julia

Oh God... Who said underpaid? lots of these people are overpaid! The "top" MLS players could never play in Europe...
Sam

It would be interesting if your DP had to be younger than 30.
combat chuck

@Ty: player salaries in Argentine football are pretty low compared to other leagues. That's why Europe and Mexico are full of Argentine players. It wouldn't surprise me if Guille earned less playing for Boca than he will with the Crew (US$150K= 450K pesos). And any advertising deals would definitely be more lucrative here than in Argentina.
Ty

Eddie Johnson the most overpaid player two years running. I'm surprised that Guillermo Barros Schelotto left Boca to play in Columbus for only $150,000. He had to be making more than that in Argentina.
Peter

It is a shame to see many quality players who aren't famous making such little money while older players past their prime rake in the big (by MLS standards) bucks.