Top 10 MLS Salaries in 2008

It’s that time of year again, when the MLS Players Union releases the annual salaries of every player in a big long list. Some of the numbers are very very big, some of them are very very small. It seems almost inconceivable that David Beckham ($6.5m) and Kansas City keeper Boris Pardo ($12,900) play in the same league.

It’s true that MLS only pays the first $415,000 of that (it is $415,00 now, right?) But that still means Becks is earning 32 times more than Pardo from MLS, and over 500 times more than Pardo total. Certainly they don’t eat at the same restaurants.

The Players Union likely releases the list to highlight such mind boggling disparities. As league revenue increases the salary cap could be raised further, but there’s no guarantee that any salary cap increase will be evenly distributed. More likely the extra money will go towards extra high profile players. Soccer by Ives even suggests the Union might need to stand up to MLS in order to bring about a higher basic salary for the non-susperstar players.

Until that happens, here are the Top 10 earners (by guaranteed salary as opposed to base salary) in MLS 2008:

1. David Beckham, LA Galaxy, $6.5 million
2. Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Chicago Fire, $2.7 million
3. Marcelo Gallardo, DC United, $1.9 million
4. Juan Pablo Angel, New York Red Bulls, $1.6 million
5. Claudio Reyna, New York Red Bulls, $1.25 million
6. Landon Donovan, LA Galaxy, $900,000
7. Carlos Ruiz, LA Galaxy, $460,000
8. Christian Gomez, Colorado Rapids, $430,000
9. Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Columbus Crew, $425,000
10. Dulio Davino, FC Dallas, $400,000

It should be noted that not all players salaries were finalized in time to make the list. For example, Claudio Lopez is probably making bank as Kansas City’s Designated Player so would definitely make the top 10. If anyone knows Lopez’s actual salary, please do tell in the comments.

There are also a plenty of bargains on the list, as spotted by Soccer Insider. Brad Guzan is good value at $104,000 a year (he’ll earn about 10 times that amount when he finally moves to Europe,) Juan Toja is worth more than his $150,000 and the pace of Dane Richards is an absolute steal at $33,000. Meanwhile, Jozey Altidore’s agent needs to do some renegotiating, because the future of the American national team has to be worth more than $128,333 a year. Credit to Altidore for not kicking up a fuss though.

Here’s what that looked like in 2007:

1. David Beckham, LA Galaxy, $6.5 million
2. Cuauhtémoc 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 Twellman, New England Revolution, $350,000
10. Carl Robinson, Toronto FC, $315,000

And here’s what it looked like in 2006:

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